A couple of weeks to the event of the 2013
Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination
(UTME) news filtered in that the federal
government is set to scrap the Joint
Admissions and Matriculations Board(JAMB)
alongside NECO. This ordinarily should
prompt the board to conduct one of the
best exams. Antithetically, it administered
what has been widely referred to as the
worst JAMB exam ever.
Though the JAMB Registrar, Professor Dibu
Ojerinde held a different view as he opined,
“The general performance of candidates in
this year’s examination shows remarkable
improvement compared with that of last
year,” the fact that the board is reducing
this year’s cut off mark to 170 from the 180
mark of last year contradicts his position.
What then is the premise on which
Professor Ojerinde hinged his assertion
that this year’s UTME result trumps that of
last year? It is based on the fact that only
three candidates scored 300 and above in
that of last year while in the present as
much as 10 candidates achieved same feat.
Is that enough reason to celebrate? I don’t
think so.
This is because just two years ago in 2011,
a mammoth 2,892 candidates obtained the
300 and above mark. Then the cut off was
200 but now it has fallen to a miserable
170. I still can’t fathom how a country that
produced this number of brilliant UTME
candidates in 2011, cannot reproduce same
or even more in 2013.
Our standard of education has so fallen to
the extent where should 1, 629, 102
candidates sat for an exam only 10 would
come out tops. Tops is not even as if they
are scoring 400 over 400. It’s just that they
fall within the range of 300 to 400 and am
sure you will hardly find any exceeding 350.
Is it in this precarious state that we would
tolerate whatever further lowers our
standard of education? No, of course!
With the way JAMB exams have continued
to turn out over recent times, it is as if JAMB
has been bitten by the same bug that struck
INEC which causes its ultimate exercise to
be a degeneracy of the penultimate. We had
thought INEC as the only sufferer of the
malaise, little did we knew that JAMB has
caught the fever. That terrible illness that
turns progress upside down and triggers a
progress in error.
Many a student who sat for the 2013 UTME
paper pencil test do not believe what they
saw as their score as a replica of what their
intelligence offered. They indeed feel
unjustly cheated out of their real score. The
other Thursday, some candidates who took
part in the exam embarked on a protest in
Maryland, Lagos State over the mass failure
that trailed the exercise.
The protesting candidates alleged that most
of them were failed by JAMB because the
board believed that examination questions
paper leaked days before the date of the
exam. This, it was claimed, led JAMB into
deducting a specific mark from the
aggregate score of those who wrote the
exam as JAMB was afraid that the leakage is
bound to provoke the prevalence of high
performance among the candidates.
Let’s give JAMB a clap for resisting the urge
to use that avenue to greatly increase the
number of candidates who would have
scored 300 and above. After all the knocks
the exam body got for having only three
candidate emerge ‘excellent’ the last time,
the easy way would have been to turn a
blind eye to the leakage so that this time
round as much as 10,000 candidates will
come through with 300 and above. So let’s
make the applause more resounding.
But had JAMB been this true to its calling it
wouldn’t have allowed the questions paper
leak in the first place. Even after it got wind
of the leakage, it shouldn’t have waited to
use a marking scheme that has produced
mass failure as alleged. The right thing the
exam body would have done after it got to
know of the anomaly was for it to cancel
the exercise and scheduled another day for
the examination to be taken.
Had this been done, it
would have saved JAMB
the embarrassment of
having its Registrar to be summoned by the
House of Representatives Committee on
Education to explain why there was the
mass failure of candidates who participated
in the now controversial UTME.
Moreover, had the board towed the right
path when it got to know of the percolation
in the examination questions paper, it
wouldn’t have landed us in this outrageous
situation where the university cut off mark
is reduced to 170. It is really unbelievable
that we have no shame pegging our varsity
entry requirement at 170 over 400.
An examination that is marked over 400
apparently has its pass mark as 200. Using
170 as a pass mark explicitly depicts our
students as not being intelligent enough as
to score an ordinary average in a test of
knowledge. To be fair to JAMB, the board
based its decision to reduce the cut off on
the need to carry along candidates from
education less advantaged areas. But this
isn’t enough reason to reduce our
standard.
The decision by JAMB to lower the cut off
mark will in the final analysis lower our
standard of education. This is as students
will now see no need in studying hard to
get high scores in UTME owing to their
acknowledgement that a modest score of
170 can see them through.
Given that JAMB is concerned with the
plight of those from education less
advantaged states, the board had better
started mulling the possibility of setting a
different set of questions for them. This is
to allow it use a marking scheme that
differs from that used for candidates from
other parts of the country, instead of
pegging cut off at a mark that reduces
student’s morale to read.
We should be mindful of not, in trying to
carry a few along, undo ourselves and the
greater majority. For we would be undoing
a greater majority of students by not giving
them a reason to strive for excellence. This
we have done by allowing them settle for
170 when once upon a time, the cut off
mark used to be 250. Yes you heard me
right 250!
This then begs the question, were those
JAMB is today securing their quota not
being admitted into universities at that
time? It all boils down to the fact that JAMB
has allowed the Nigerian culture of
compromise to thrive in its system. This
detracts from our quest for educational
advancement, if we have the quest at all.
We can’t keep trading off standards
especially in the education sub sector and
expect our students to attain academic
excellence. Now that we have reduced the
cut off to 170, if someone who could not
score 200 in UTME later succeeds in being
admitted to the university, what guarantee
is there that such a student will graduate
with a grade as low as second class lower.
I guess JAMB never thought of that when it
reduced the cut off mark. Perhaps, it was
more concerned with heaving the burden
off itself without minding who eventually
bears same. It is on this account that the
various tertiary institutions should rise to
the occasion. Thank heavens they still have
the right to screen out those who are not
qualified to get into school. They should
through their post UTME make JAMB realise
that not everybody is cut out for furthering
his or her education.
But then, there appear to be more to the
haste with which JAMB reduced the cut off
mark to 170. Perchance it is guilty
conscience at play. It may be that what the
protesting candidates claimed is dinkum
ergo JAMB has no option but to suit its
conscience.
It is sad for officials of JAMB, who were
quick to issue threat and condemn
government’s reported plan to scrap the
board, not to comport themselves in a
manner that curries goodwill from the
public who will speak out for them should
government seek to effect that plan. JAMB
should therefore wake to its responsibility
before it is confined to the dustbin of
history.

Source?