No to scrapping of post-UTME tests

ON June 2, 2016, the Federal Government
announced the cancellation of post-Unified
Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) tests
instituted by tertiary institutions, mainly
universities, in 2007.

The Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu
Adamu, announced this at the 2016 Combined
Policy Meeting on Admissions to Universities,
Polytechnics and other higher institutions. The
meeting also pegged cut-off scores for admission
into tertiary institutions at 180, or 45 per cent of
400 obtainable in the UTME test.

Announcing the decision, Mallam Adamu said: “as
far as I am concerned, the nation has confidence
in what JAMB is doing; the universities should
not be holding another examinations and if the
universities have any complaint against JAMB, let
them bring it and then we address it.”
Actually, it was complaints against JAMB that led
the same Federal Government to allow
universities to conduct post-UTME tests. The
Joint Admissions & Matriculations Board (JAMB)
was set up in 1978 to conduct unified
matriculation examinations and place students in
universities. This effectively ended the
autonomy which universities hitherto enjoyed in
selecting students who met set criteria for
admission.

However, over the years, admission racketeering
blighted the process. Not only that, examination
malpractice became a monster such that
mercenary students wrote the tests for others,
who gained admission but failed woefully in the
tuition process. Coupled with a general feeling
that educational standards have fallen drastically,
there was a cacophonous cry that JAMB should
be scrapped and universities allowed to admit
their own students as was the case until 1977.

The Federal Government was unwilling to scrap
JAMB but instead allowed institutions to conduct
post-UTME tests.

Now that post-UTME tests have been scrapped, it
is back to square one. Our government’s public
policy inconsistency continues. With 1,700,000
students applying every year for approximately
800,000 admission spaces, it is understating the
fact that the nation has an admission crisis of
leviathan proportions.

Scrapping post-UTME tests will unwittingly put
the admission racketeers back in business.
Admission is, once again, for the highest bidders.

We stand firmly for university autonomy and
support the idea that they should control their
own admission processes in line with their
respective institutional visions. If JAMB will not
yet be scrapped, then the post-UTME must be
restored to enable every university take hold of
the quality control of students coming under
their tutelage.

We condemn capricious changes in government
policy in Nigeria. It gives an impression of us a
confused country. After over fifty years of
indigenous university administration and
ownership, we ought to have laid a solid and
dependable foundation upon which our
educational sector can steadily grow, rather than
this see-saw inconsistency, which is usually
rooted in corruption and negative politics.