Confusion, irregularities greet 2015 UTME, as exams begin Monday

Netsela

Presenting: 2015 JAMB/UTME "CBT Testing" & Confusion amongst Candidates On Exam!!
THE 2015 Unified Tertiary Matriculation
Examination, UTME billed to commence on
Monday, March 9 has been greeted with
confusion and irregularities, as candidates
struggle to access the website of JAMB to print
examination slips without a success.

Complaints from candidates revealed that they
were subjected to pay extra charges of N100 to
check their examination centres at JAMB office.
Just as they also alleged to have paid N700 to
register for the exams earlier.

While JAMB stated that examination commences
on 9th March, many candidates, however
complained of being confused about the different
examination dates in their slips.

On Monday, over 1.4 million students who
registered for the 2015 Unified Tertiary
Matriculation Examination, UTME, will sit for the
examination beginning 9th March.

Candidates for the first time in the past three
years, will compulsorily write the tertiary
examinations via Computer-Based Test, CBT,
without options of the Paper-Pencil Testing, PPT,
or the Dual-Based Testing, DBT.

The examination which will commence on
Monday, according to JAMB, will run for 10 days,
leaving candidates to jostle for the 800,000
admission slots in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.

Although candidates have been informed since
2013 that from 2015, those writing the
examination will no longer have the paper-pencil
or dual-based testing options but just computer-
based testing, it seems many of the candidates
are yet to come to the reality of this development.

Professor Dibu Ojerinde had in 2013 said: “The
CBT is not compulsory, as every candidate would
have the choice to choose either the PPT or the
DBT but in 2015, it will be compulsory for all
UTME candidates.”

The Registrar who gave reasons why it was
inevitable to do away with the PPT and embrace
the computer-based test stated that it will curb
examination malpractice and enhance quick
release of examination results.

He explained: “The idea of the CBT is that after 30
minutes of the examination and the candidate
leaves the exam hall, a graphical result of the test
will be sent to the candidate’s mobile phone
number, while the specific scores will be released
within the period of four days.”

At the début of this initiative in 2013, the
examination body secured 77 centres across the
country where the computer-based test held.
However, speaking with Vanguard Learning, its
Public Relations Officer, Mr Fabian Benjamin said
the centres have been increased to 400 across
the nation.

Whereas in 2013, JAMB recorded just 4,000
registered candidates that showed interest in
computer-based test, the remaining 1.7 million
did either paper-pencil testing or dual-based
testing, but today, the 1.4 million registered
candidates will compulsorily sit for CBT.

Comparing the statistics of early years of UTME
candidates’ registration, we discovered a steady
decline since 2013 when the CBT was introduced.
In 2013, about 1.7 million people registered for
UTME, in 2014, the number fell to 1.6 million,
while about 1.4 million have registered for this
year’s examination.

Performance of UTME candidates

The figure for the 2014 UTME shows a decrease
of 129,139 when compared with last year’s total
figure of 1,735,892 applicants.

There is a decrease this year compared to the last
year which might not be unconnected with the
introduction of CBT. For instance, when it was
PPT in 2013, a total of 1.7 million registered for the
examination. What could have been responsible
for the steady decline?

First thing that comes to mind is that our
students have improved academically and gained
admission to their desired institutions of higher
learning. However, the performance of UTME
candidates in the past three years have been
abysmal. In 2014, only 47 candidates scored 250
and above in the Paper-Pencil Test and Dual-
Based Test. In 2013, 10 candidates scored 300
marks and above, while 127,017 candidates
scored between 1-159 marks. So, based on the
above records, the decline in UTME registration
cannot be as a result of academic improvement
of students.

A school of thought posits that the increase in
number of Nigerian universities has absorbed the
backlog of unadmitted students. Looking at the
capacity of the nine universities added to the
existing ones in 2013, you will discover that the
total number of students admitted in those public
universities are not up to 500,000. So, where
have the students gone?

Another school of thought believes that private
universities have since absorbed the backlog of
UTME candidates to their schools. The question
begging for answer is: how many parents can
afford the fees of these private universities? Many
of the private universities in Nigeria collect
between N400,000 and N1,000,000 as fees from
each student depending on their course.

Where have the candidates who registered and
failed in 2013 and 2014 gone to? Have they
resorted to polytechnics and colleges of
education? I am not sure they are there, because
of the incessant ASUP strikes, the last which
lasted almost a session. Where exactly are these
students, over 300,000 students are no where to
be found.Could the introduction of CTB have
discouraged UTME candidates from registering
for the examinations?

Registering for the examinations

Speaking in this regard, Professor Anthony Kila
said: “The fall in number of JAMB candidates in
2015 tell us that Nigerian population is growing,
access to Education is increasing and tertiary
institutions are also increasing. What those
numbers tell us is that people are not having faith
in the Nigerian system of education any more.

“The uniqueness of JAMB is that it is mainly for
Nigerian education. So the fact that the number of
candidates who registere for UTME is dwindling,
shows that people are not patronising the
Nigerian education system, they are looking
elsewhere.

“The question to be asked is: Why are they
looking elsewhere? They are looking elsewhere
because quality is low, they are scared of strikes,
also people managing the education system don’t
have their children in the system. As a result,
there are no incentives for citizen to patronise the
Nigerian education system. They are going
elsewhere, abroad, neighbouring African
countries, they are going to private universities.

“The only people left to go to Nigerian universities
are those that have no choice. It is a very sad and
sorry state of affairs for the country. We all need
to look into it.”

Meanwhile, former Head of Department,
Adekunle Ajasin University and Joseph Ayo
Babalola University said: “Everyone is aware that
the standard of our students sitting for JAMB has
fallen drastically in terms of knowledge of the
subjects examined by JAMB. We can’t place
blame yet until we research into it.

However, one reason is that the government, to
me, is not doing much in the educational sector,
in terms of providing facilities and paying
teachers’ salaries as at when due, so that there
will be no strikes and no disturbances from the
students themselves. Because the disturbances
and strikes cause inhibitions to learning and that
creates a lot of problems for the institutions.

“That is why the statistics is coming down and it
will keep coming down, unless the situation is
addressed properly by federal government, state
government, retired stakeholders, religious
bodies that are stakeholders in the sector, and so
on. If we do not do this, I would not be surprised
if next year it drops further.

“During our days, education was not taken for
granted as it is these days. Many teachers are not
even qualified to teach yet they are employed to
teach Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Physics
and English Language. You can see the writing
skill of the students has dropped drastically
because they do not understand English
language. Many of them cannot write a sentence
correctly.

“All these things put together are responsible for
the decline in the registration of students for
JAMB. Instead of ascending, the statistics is
descending and this is because the situation is
very bad.

Admission to public universities

“However, there are some of them who do not
have the money to pay for the exam, just as
there are others who have gotten admission to
public universities but cannot even afford to go
there.

“Besides, We have seen some students who
want to go to universities but their parents cannot
afford to send them to public universities, even as
low as the public universities charge.

“Private universities are also suffering from lack of
registration because many of the universities that
have just been approved may not have students.
Many of the students are staying at home
because they cannot pay the expensive school
fees. There are a lot of problems and they are
mingled together.”

Confusion, irregularities greet 2015 UTME, as exams begin Monday

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