20th July, 2011
The Joint Admissions Matriculation Board, JAMB, conducted another admissions test for its Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) candidates on 18 June, 2011.
As always, it was another season of JAMB‘s unpreparedness, a season of confusion, a season of arrogant and monopolistic high-handedness, a season of high administrative failure of a very high proportion, a season of anomie.
If the truth must be told, the reign of confusion and administrative recklessness in JAMB became worse during the few years of Prof. Dibu Ojerindeâ€
JAMB charges an exorbitant fee of N4,500 for its 1.5 million candidates. Governmentâ€
The massive failure in JAMB 2011 is enough to make a nation with men of good conscience weep uncontrollably for the future of their young generation. Or have Nigerians become so inured to suffering and deprivation after decades of unmitigated bastardisation by our insensitive and corrupt leadership? Or is it a question of ‘what touches me not, bothers me notâ€
This mass failure was as a result of several reasons including lack of basic necessary materials like calculators for students writing mathematics, physics, and chemistry in JAMB. Candidates were forced to solve these intricate questions manually instead of through the calculator as provided for by JAMB. I bet some Professors in the sciences will flunk JAMB if given the time wasting option of manual calculation.
Other reasons for mass failure include the cumbersome biometric screening procedure which delayed so many candidates from starting on time. In most centres, the biometric screening device was abandoned as it became too epileptic and burdensome.
After such a rigorous and stressful screening by JAMB, candidates were bound to show signs of psychological fatigue and trauma which is another good cause of failure in examinations,
Another cause of mass failure is JAMBâ€
JAMB has exploited unilateralism which is one of the characteristics of a monopoly. Who will challenge JAMB? Who will call JAMB to order? Are the top officials in the Ministry of Education not aware of this fetid mess going on in JAMB? Of course, they are, but JAMB has taken care of all of them – a la Nigeriana.
JAMB withholds, releases, reduces and cancels results as it wishes and no supervisory body calls it to order.
Does JAMB realise the holistic implications of its actions, inactions, its omissions and commissions?
The ambition of young students are thwarted and destroyed just like that as a result of JAMBâ€
So many lives of these young and ambitious candidates are lost through road accidents while travelling to long distances to write their UTME examinations. One of the most ridiculous cases was in the 2010 UTME when a candidate claimed she was assigned to Alimosho Grammar School in Egbeda – Lagos from Cross River State where she resided.
On a yearly basis, Nigeria has lost so many citizens to JAMBâ€
Also, the economy of a nation plummets when its students are denied basic and fundamental educational skills and opportunities. This is so, because skilled labour is one of the parameters of the technological growth and take off of a nation. A nationâ€
Nigeria is not the only country in the world where candidates and even their teachers cheat during examinations.
In a report released in America on Monday 4th July 2011, 178 teachers and principals were involved in systemic cheating in 48 schools in Atlanta (Georgia) alone. 82 of these teachers and principals confessed to their interrogators. In Washington DC alone 103 public schools were accused of manipulating studentsâ€
But in Nigeria, the sins of a few candidates are visited on every candidate in the hall because JAMB is too nonchalant and lazy to look for the offending candidates.
Rather than enhance and accelerate the educational advancement of young Nigerian students, JAMB has over the years frustrated and destroyed the bright dreams of millions of young Nigerians and turned their search for theproverbial golden fleece into a regrettable odyssey.
My painful submission and verdict is that JAMB should be scrapped not because Prof. Dibu Ojerinde has no clues to JAMBâ€
In its stead, the Federal Government should consult with other West African countries and set up a West African Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (WAJAMB) with headquarters in Accra-Ghana.
WAJAMB like West African Exams Council (WAEC) will perform creditably well. Over the years I have observed that WAEC has been inured from the putrid corruption that reeks in every Nigerian Office. This is mainly because WAECâ€
WAJAMB will be a great infrastructure asset to the whole of West Africa. Nigerian students will have greater advantage and opportunities in the whole of West Africa as against our internally limited options. Other West African countries will also be happy to have optimal capacity for their under utilized universities while also enjoying better academic facilities in our Nigerian universities.
A cross fertilization of intellectualism and experiences could flourish in the West African regional community if the ideas and of WAJAMB are further expanded to form a West African Universities Commission (WAUC).
WAUC will encourage a generation of intellectualism between Nigeria and her smaller neighbours like Ghana, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Mali, Burkina Faso, Cote dâ€
WAUC will also expose and expand the corps of intellectualism into a broader and all embracing regional intellectual community of West African states.
An inter-university co-operation in West Africa will also direct the exodus of Nigerian professors from America to the smaller West African universities which will in turn lead to an intellectual renaissance in the West African community.
If the options are not acceptable to government, then we should revert to the pre–1978 status –quo of universities admitting candidates of their choice. Admission into universities then was a lot easier than the cumbersome procedures candidates now have to undergo, and in most cases, end up not not securing the admission after all the stress.
•Ben Nanaghan wrote this article from Lagos. E-mail: Ben Nanaghan@yahoo.com