The recent scrapping of the Post-UTME by the leadership would at best be the perfect recipe for disaster, not to put too fine a point on it! Beyond been foolhardy, it would have the last straw effect on the back of a seemingly gaunt and ailing educational system.
While the above initiative remains oddly disturbing, it does further carry with it a strange sense of dejavu. It comes in the aftermath of an inept application of voodoo economics in the devaluation of the naira by the CBN coupled with an inevitable fall in oil prices which has culminated in the economic cataclysm and distress experienced nationwide, consisting in the main, of government’s inability to meet up with its economic obligations to its citizens. And rather than pour oil on the already troubled waters, it purports to stir it the more. If these later developments are anything to go by, it would mean that the government is quite frankly blasé to the people’s plight.

Before now, the Post-UTME represented the only authentic means of assessing the pedigree of candidates for tertiary education in Nigeria in the event of their eventual success at the JAMB examinations. The rationale for this was to be found in the widespread distrust that trailed the conduct of JAMB examinations in Nigeria which had failed to produce candidates of probity and good standing, as evinced by the seismic rates of cheating recorded nationwide at such exams. Thus the universities themselves doubted the credibility of all those who had emerged from the JAMB exams and therefore saw it fit to filter those coming through on their very own screening platform. This was the making of the Post-UTME. Despite the success of the Post-UTME in curbing the influx of exam delinquents from gaining entry into tertiary institutions, it however upped the ante for other genuine candidates coming through the system. The prospect of sitting two screening exams in the same year posed no small hurdle. If a candidate had aced one only to flunk the other, to adopt a phraseology of Charles Dickens’ “he would have risen like a rocket only to come down like a stick”. The effect would have been the equivalent of a zero sum game- he would be back to square one, and risked the full brunt of this same unavoidable misfortune in sitting both exams in the succeeding year. And so goes the cycle…

Given this plight, it seemed almost a welcome development that the government had intended ringing the desired changes that would ease the growing circuitous pains experienced by JAMB hopefuls. Instead, the government has attempted to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Our education policy makers could either have scrapped JAMB given its spectacular failure in providing an unfortunate springboard for malpractice, while at the same time still retaining the Post-UTME platform as the better choice of two evils.
If however it desired doing away with both evils entirely, it could either have scrapped both screening platforms while it pioneered an independently malpractice free screening platform insulated from the exclusive reach of the corrupt elements.

Instead, it has removed the only bastion holding the opening of the malpractice floodgates in our examination strongholds. The government has argued that its decision was justified in light of the success of the just-introduced CBT platform, which it claimed had driven malpractice to record levels. It is of course possible that the CBT may have done so, but I suspect the government may have gotten its malpractice demographics from a school in Nigeria, sharing the same security levels as the Pentagon and with an all-saintly student population.

I appreciate the optimism and straight talking, but we can’t amputate a leg along with an injury. The remedy would be worse than the disease. We will of course have to brace ourselves for the worst. The nightmare scenarios of this Post-UTME scrapping bearing in mind the announcement by the JAMB Board that it would be giving admissions to qualified candidates would mean that a candidate who has “obtained” a record score at the Jamb exam through cheating would ipso facto be given admission into their desired discipline. Just imagine how this would populate our societies with the reign of incompetence. Will you even still visit a hospital knowing fully well a quack doctor will attend to you? the JAMB Board would have sacrificed meritocracy on the altar of mediocrity, since most of the mass-cheating high scoring candidates would be the very ones getting the nods for admission.

Beyond this, scrapping Post-UTME without any buffer against malpractice will further increase the desperation in the system therefore making the JAMB exams a free-for-all with candidates going to absurd extremes to secure their needed points for admission. In actual fact, we might just be witnessing the opening of another Pandora’s Box. Only this time, it will cost us the labour of succeeding generations.

Kamadoye:
Post-UTME Scrapping: A Paper over the cracks
The recent scrapping of the Post-UTME by the leadership would at best be the perfect recipe for disaster, not to put too fine a point on it! Beyond been foolhardy, it would have the last straw effect on the back of a seemingly gaunt and ailing educational system.
While the above initiative remains oddly disturbing, it does further carry with it a strange sense of dejavu. It comes in the aftermath of an inept application of voodoo economics in the devaluation of the naira by the CBN coupled with an inevitable fall in oil prices which has culminated in the economic cataclysm and distress experienced nationwide, consisting in the main, of government’s inability to meet up with its economic obligations to its citizens. And rather than pour oil on the already troubled waters, it purports to stir it the more. If these later developments are anything to go by, it would mean that the government is quite frankly blasé to the people’s plight.
Before now, the Post-UTME represented the only authentic means of assessing the pedigree of candidates for tertiary education in Nigeria in the event of their eventual success at the JAMB examinations. The rationale for this was to be found in the widespread distrust that trailed the conduct of JAMB examinations in Nigeria which had failed to produce candidates of probity and good standing, as evinced by the seismic rates of cheating recorded nationwide at such exams. Thus the universities themselves doubted the credibility of all those who had emerged from the JAMB exams and therefore saw it fit to filter those coming through on their very own screening platform. This was the making of the Post-UTME. Despite the success of the Post-UTME in curbing the influx of exam delinquents from gaining entry into tertiary institutions, it however upped the ante for other genuine candidates coming through the system. The prospect of sitting two screening exams in the same year posed no small hurdle. If a candidate had aced one only to flunk the other, to adopt a phraseology of Charles Dickens’ “he would have risen like a rocket only to come down like a stick”. The effect would have been the equivalent of a zero sum game- he would be back to square one, and risked the full brunt of this same unavoidable misfortune in sitting both exams in the succeeding year. And so goes the cycle…
Given this plight, it seemed almost a welcome development that the government had intended ringing the desired changes that would ease the growing circuitous pains experienced by JAMB hopefuls. Instead, the government has attempted to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Our education policy makers could either have scrapped JAMB given its spectacular failure in providing an unfortunate springboard for malpractice, while at the same time still retaining the Post-UTME platform as the better choice of two evils.
If however it desired doing away with both evils entirely, it could either have scrapped both screening platforms while it pioneered an independently malpractice free screening platform insulated from the exclusive reach of the corrupt elements.
Instead, it has removed the only bastion holding the opening of the malpractice floodgates in our examination strongholds. The government has argued that its decision was justified in light of the success of the just-introduced CBT platform, which it claimed had driven malpractice to record levels. It is of course possible that the CBT may have done so, but I suspect the government may have gotten its malpractice demographics from a school in Nigeria, sharing the same security levels as the Pentagon and with an all-saintly student population.
I appreciate the optimism and straight talking, but we can’t amputate a leg along with an injury. The remedy would be worse than the disease. We will of course have to brace ourselves for the worst. The nightmare scenarios of this Post-UTME scrapping bearing in mind the announcement by the JAMB Board that it would be giving admissions to qualified candidates would mean that a candidate who has “obtained” a record score at the Jamb exam through cheating would ipso facto be given admission into their desired discipline. Just imagine how this would populate our societies with the reign of incompetence. Will you even still visit a hospital knowing fully well a quack doctor will attend to you? the JAMB Board would have sacrificed meritocracy on the altar of mediocrity, since most of the mass-cheating high scoring candidates would be the very ones getting the nods for admission.
Beyond this, scrapping Post-UTME without any buffer against malpractice will further increase the desperation in the system therefore making the JAMB exams a free-for-all with candidates going to absurd extremes to secure their needed points for admission. In actual fact, we might just be witnessing the opening of another Pandora’s Box. Only this time, it will cost us the labour of succeeding generations.

well said.since the essence of scrapping putme has been defeated,I think universities should revert back to their old systems.

This new method is very absurd and should be jettisoned because It doesn't not add any meaningful value to the system.

Eggheads of public schools are definitely going to be at the receiving end;grading with olevel results is totally uncalled for because miracle centres abound.cc:Lalasticlala, fynestboi.

You are spot on.

Just like every other action this government has undertaken, it has lost it's plot on education policy making, and should revert back to the story line to familiarise itself.

Only in Buhari's government will the only means of filtering out unserious and unqualified students be eliminated. I mean, I knew we had confused leaders, I just didn't realise they were this confused! Why will students want to read now when their mates going to miracle centers have better chances of gaining admission?

#SuicidalGovernment

Mods, front page material! Lets hope one confused leader will come to nairaland and see reason with this.

Mods, front page material! Lets hope one confused leader will come across it and see reason with this.

Cc: olawalebabs, Richiez, Fynestboi