Earlyface

Since the Joint Admissions and Matriculation
Board released the result of the Unified
Tertiary Matriculation Examination it
conducted for candidates seeking
admission to higher institutions across the
country on April 27, Dare Oluwatosin has
been emotionally down. The 17-year-old boy
had scored 197 out of a possible 400. Like
most candidates that sat for the exam,
Oluwatosin has rejected the results. He says
with his preparation for the exam and his
performance during the UTME, he ought to
have scored 250 or more.
“This is not my score. I reject this because I
really prepared for the examination,” he
says. Reactions such as this have been
trailing the UTME, written by over 1.6 million
candidates. Teachers, parents, education
enthusiasts and even members of the House
of Representatives have expressed doubts
about the integrity of the results, which saw
738,365 candidates scoring 200 and above,
while 801,863 candidates, whose results
have so far been released, scored less than
200.
Ojerinde had, while announcing the results,
said that 10 of the candidates scored 300
and above; 628 scored between 270 and
299, 33,115 got between 250 and 269;
while 704,622, scored between 200 and
249.
He added that 571,298 of the candidates
scored between 170 and 199; 103,489
scored between 160-169 while 127,017
scored less than 159.
But to Ojerinde, this year’s UTME result was
an improvement on the 2012 result where
only three candidates obtained 300 and
above.
This is true because in 2012, only three of
the candidates scored 300 and above. In
2012 also, of the 1,384,644 candidates that
sat for the UTME, 673,394 scored 200 and
above; while 587,494 scored 200 and above
in 2011 out of the 1,493,604 candidates
that sat for the examination. But when
compared with 2011, this year’s result
would be rightly described as poor.
This is because in 2011, 2,892 candidates
scored over 300 instead of the 10
candidates that scored over 300 out of a
possible 400 in 2013.
However, some critics argue that an exam in
which over 50 per cent failed should not be
adjudged as a success. To many of
candidates these critics, the result was not a
true reflection of the academic
performances of the candidates.
In fact, the House of Representatives had
summoned the JAMB Registrar, Prof. Dibu
Ojerinde, to come and explain the reason for
the mass failure.
JAMB had argued that the foolproof security
measures it adopted, which frustrated the
activities of fraudsters, laziness on the part
of the candidates and the four-question-
type employed for the examination
combined well to frustrate many lazy
candidates.
The JAMB Head of Information, Fabian
Benjamin, had also said, “Before we mark
our examination papers, our answers are
ready; so there is no room for manipulation.
As a matter of fact, our questions did not
leak. Such students are victims of deceit and
exploitation by desperate examination
merchants.
“You see, in the past, we used Types: A, B
and C. But for this year, we had Types D, I, B
and U. So, those fraudsters went to print
Types; A, B and C and sold to candidates
when we did not have such types.
“Besides, for English Language, there were
two textbooks that the candidates were
supposed to read but most of them did not
the read the books and 10 questions came
from each of them. Automatically, if you did
not read the textbooks, it is 20 questions off
your marks.”
Another top official of JAMB, who spoke on
the condition of anonymity because he was
not authorised to speak on the issue, said
many of the candidates that sat for the
examination had planned to cheat through
various means, but security measures put in
place by JAMB frustrated this.
“Some who wanted to copy their colleagues’
work were also disappointed because we
have four types of questions for each of the
subjects. This makes cheating difficult, but
some of them were ignorant of this. So,
when they copied their colleagues’ answers,
they get low marks,” the source says.
But in spite of JAMB’s explanations, some
Nigerians are still of the opinion that the
examination agency resorted to deduction
of candidates’ score as a way of mitigating
the effect of alleged leakage of the UTME
questions two days before the examination.
Others are of the view that since the scripts
were marked electronically, there could have
been mistakes in the process of feeding the
system with the answer scripts of the
candidates. An expert in e-testing, who
pleaded that his name should not be
mentioned, argued that the failure could be
as a result of technical failure on the part of
the company that JAMB gave the job to.
“Before a company could be given such a
huge job to do, such should have a great
deal of experience and I don’t think that the
firm that handled that UTME for JAMB has
the required experience to do that job. So, it
is not impossible that there could be a
technical hitch during the marking process.
However, I will also blame some candidates
for being academically lazy. You don’t
depend on another person to pass exam,”
he said.
However, some critics are of the view that
the candidates were intentionally failed
because JAMB had a predetermined number
to offer admission to tertiary institutions.
For instance, a secondary school teacher
from Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, Mr. Tola
Bolaji, argues that JAMB has a lot of
questions to answer on the massive failure
because the result does not reflect the
academic ability of the pupils in the nation’s
school system.
“The questions that beg for answer are: Is it
possible that the examination body had a
predetermined number of successful
candidates even before the day of the
exam? Is it true that some candidates were
failed unjustifiably? Is there really a way to
justify the fact that the only 10 candidates
that scored 300 and above among about 1.7
million candidates are a true picture of the
level of success among those candidates
who read and sat for this highly expensive
examination, when the huge cost lies more
in its preparation and not even the
registration,?” he asks.
He argues that the claim by JAMB that
candidates’ lack of preparation and
teachers’ misguided teachings and the
candidates’ romance with social media
network, when they were supposed to be
reading, were responsible for their failure
could not be justified.
“As true as that may be, I beg to disagree
with the opinion that the educational sector
of this nation has collapsed totally as the
2013 UTME results seem to suggest. I believe
that as poor as our system of education
might have grown, our students now have
access to the world’s largest library, I mean
the Internet,” Bolaji argues.
However, the JAMB spokesperson has
denied all these allegations, saying that
JAMB’s conduct and administration of the
exam are in line with global practices.
Also, another set of Nigerians blamed
parents for the failure. They argued that
corruption being perpetuated by some
parents is well known to their children, who
also emulate their parents to cheat.
“Nigeria is a corrupt nation and a lot of
parents who engage in corruption don’t
know that their children are watching them.
Some of them (parents) pay mercenaries for
their children to pass WASSCE and NECO.
“They cheat to make money and their
children have imbibed the culture of
corruption and laziness, thinking that they
don’t have to sweat to become successful.
Now that things are going digital and they
are finding it impossible to cheat, why are
we shouting?,” Mrs. Moni Oladapo, a Physics
teacher in a public school in Lagos, said.
Yet, some educationists are also calling on
JAMB and other examination agencies in the
country to plug all loopholes that could
compromise the integrity of their
examinations.
“JAMB should involve experienced experts in
computer-based examinations and should
ensure that its equipment are effective. The
biometric the examination body introduced
is good, but quality machines should be
acquired to drive it. Otherwise, the problem
of unverified biometric challenges we
witnessed when the result was initially
released would continue,” the e-test expert,
who pleaded anonymity, said.

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