Sustained reactions continue to stalk the Federal Ministry of Education’s resolve to peg the cut-off mark for entry into tertiary institutions at 180. This comes amid widespread failure rates and falling academic standards among secondary school students.
Adamu Adamu, the Minister of Education announced that the Federal Government was scrapping the post Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) and pegging the cut-off mark for entry into tertiary institutions of learning at 180 out of 400 total marks possible.
“As far as I am concerned, the nation has confidence in what JAMB is doing, the universities should not be holding another examination and if the universities have any complaints against JAMB, let them bring it and then we address it,” Adamu had said.
Adetunji Adegbesan, founder and CEO Gidimobile, an education technology company, in his response to the adoption of 180 cut-off mark said this amounts to an official endorsement of mediocrity. “It is alarming that the minister dropped the bar this low. Whilst we are faced with falling academic standard in our education system, policies should be designed to raise the standard not lower it. The failure rate at the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination is alarming. Some states, especially in the north, recorded 98 percent failure rates.”
Darlington Agholor, lecturer at the School of Business Administration, PanAtlantic University, Lagos, in an impassioned remark, contended that the 180 as cut-off mark is quite poor. Out of a total possible score of 400 marks, 180 is less than 50%, this means there is a general drop in performance and we should be worried.
According venturesafrica.com, an online platform, this development will boost enrolment without a commensurate increase in carrying capacity because institutions already have a culture of admitting numbers that exceed their capacity by an average of 1,500 more students.
The combined carrying capacity of all public tertiary educational institutions in Nigeria is less than 800,000 with universities alone accounting for about 600,000.
According to the registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) 1.2 million students scored above 180 in the 2016 UTME exercise, making the number of candidates now eligible for university admission twice the amount of seats available.
Despite this glaring dissonance, there are no plans to increase the admission quotas of each university and the minister made it clear that universities will be sanctioned if they go beyond their capacity.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has responded to these changes through its new president, Biodun Ogunyemi, who emphasised that the laws establishing universities empowered the Senate of each institution to determine the conditions for admission and graduation of students. Ogunyemi observed, “It is the duty of the university senate to set the cut-off marks for each of their programmes and set the guidelines to determine who is qualified for admission.”
JAMB needs more than a vote of confidence from the minister of education to improve its capacity to conduct examinations without widespread complaints of technical failure and malpractice.
His talk of JAMB’s competence should have brought his confidence in the preparedness of students, particularly on computer literacy and the skills they need to successfully complete a computer based test (CBT) into question, as this still remains a serious issue for economically disadvantaged students attending public schools.
These new policies will not motivate the secondary students to sit face-down any longer, burning the midnight oil. Its only aim is to increase the quantity of people eligible for university admission without any consideration for quality.
Afe Babalola, founder of Afe Babalola University, responding to these policies said, “I am more than shocked by the announcement that the post-UTME as part of the qualifying procedure for admission to Nigerian universities has now been cancelled. This, to me, is nothing but a most calamitous mistake, which poses danger and an irreversible, adverse effect on the quality of education in this country.”
JOHN OMACHONU & STEPHEN ONYEKWELU
