By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Low pass mark in this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) has been blamed on coronavirus by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) after its first take of blaming candidates met with huge backlash.
After a week of heat from students and parents, JAMB Registrar, Is-haq Oloyede, a professor, on Sunday finally acknowledged on Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) that the pandemic affected the academic calendar to the detriment of students.
He disclosed that in the 2021 result, 99.65 per cent scored 120 above in possible 400 marks, and combined with other metrics, it was the worst grade in three years. In 2020, he added, 99.65 per cent did, per PUNCH reporting.
“In 2018, it was 99.99 per cent [who scored 120 and above in possible 400 marks] but in 2019 it dropped to 99.92.
“Also, in 2020, 69.82 per cent of the total candidates who sat the UTME scored 160 and above but in 2021, it reduced to 65.62 per cent. But this is expected,” Oloyede explained.
“In Nigeria, we think we do not live in a global community. All informed education experts understand why it is so. They knew the point at which we were in the academic calendar before the examination was taken in 2020 and in 2021.
“Last year, when they took the examination, they (the students) had gone far in their syllabus. But this year, they suffered incomplete academic sessions; they had to cope with emergency online lessons and even many other disturbances like insecurity.”
JAMB absolves self in blaming candidates for mass failure
UTME 2021 was written between June 19 and 22, and the result was released on June 25 to the chagrin of students who said JAMB gave them the wrong syllabus.
By July 1, JAMB was still blaming the mass failure on the lack of good preparation by candidates and was silent on other hitches.
However, other disruptive factors everyone knew contributed to the poor performance, which JAMB did not mention, included confusion about registration with National Identity Number (NIN) and shifts in examination dates.
Besides, in the run up to the examination, 24 Computer-Based Examination Centres (CBT) were delisted which led to candidates having to reregister in other CBTs – all of this eating into their study time.
JAMB asked candidates posted to the delisted centres to wait for further directives by checking their profile, email address, and SMS on their registered phone numbers for a new date.
The delisted centres were spread across 11 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Lagos had the highest number of six centres. Other states affected included Kaduna, Edo, Ondo, Plateau, FCT, Oyo, Osun, Delta, Benue, Imo and Nasarawa.
A total 1,415,501 candidates registered for both UTME and Direct Entry (DE) in 2021. Out of this number, 1,340,003 registered for UTME and 75,498 for DE.
A total 1,300,722 wrote the UTE, with 78,389 absent.
Per The Guardian (Nigeria), when the result of the examination was announced on June 25, some candidates blamed their poor grades on being given the wrong syllabus by JAMB.
But JAMB Public Affairs and Protocol Head, Fabian Benjamin, countered that “all … UTME questions are based on texts prescribed for the UTME in its syllabus.”
He said: “The Board ordinarily would not have reacted to the half-truth being peddled by some disgruntled candidates, who were ill-prepared for the examination and who, true to all expectations, performed below the expectations of their guardians, that the Board had based its questions on the wrong syllabus.”
According to Benjamin, to ensure that its syllabus was accessible to all candidates sitting its examination, JAMB made the material available on three platforms:
· JAMB Integrated Brochure and Syllabus System (IBASS)
· A CD given to candidates after completion of registration
· Link https://www.ibass.jamb.gov.ng provided with candidates’ profile code.
Use of NIN curbs exam malpractice in 2021
A statement issued by JAMB on June 25 said it has “released the results of candidates who sat in more than 720 CBT centres for the 2021 [UTME] conducted between Saturday, June 19 and Tuesday, June 22, 2021.
“Each concerned candidate is advised to check his/her result by sending UTMERESULT to 55019 through the GSM number used by each candidate to obtain profile code and UTME registration with the Board and their results would be relayed to them.
“Results for subsequent days would be released daily.
“The Board notes with satisfaction that the utilisation of NIN (National Identification Number) has helped in curbing examination malpractices as the 2021 UTME has recorded the least incidence of irregularities since the inception of the CBT examinations in Nigeria.
“Nevertheless, the Board would still review all the CCTV (closed circuit television) footage and other technical gadgets for detection of possible examination misconducts.
“Extremely comparatively few results are being withheld for further investigation.
“In addition, the Board would not hesitate to withdraw the results of any candidate subsequently found to have committed any form of examination misconduct.”
