Seventeen-year-old JohnPaul Okeke has not been his usual boisterous
person since last Friday. In fact, throughout the weekend, the
youngster, who attended St. Francis Catholic Secondary School, Idimu,
Lagos, wore a helpless look. At the centre of his helplessness was last Friday’s news report that the Federal Government has scrapped the post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
Occupying the youngster’s mind is how this year’s university admission is
going to take shape. Will the nation’s universities revert to the pre-2004 admission models where the Joint Admissions and Matriculation
Board had the exclusive rights to offer candidates admissions? Will some
of the universities assert their autonomy this year as they did in 2004
during the tenure of the then Minister of Education, Mrs. Chinwe Obaji?
These and many more were worries disturbing the peace of the young
man, who wants to study Law at the Nnamdi Azikwe University, Awka,
Anambra State. Already, he scored 268 in the UTME held earlier in the
year.
This same dilemma confronts many of the candidates looking forward to
securing admission to higher institutions in the country this year.
Apart from this, some universities have already conducted this year’s
post-UTME, just as many have advertised and collected examination
fees from admission seekers.
Indeed to clear this impasse, our correspondent gathered exclusively
that the Minister of Education, Mr. Adamu Adamu, would speak on
Tuesday (today) on the issue.

A Deputy Director (Press) in the Federal Ministry of Education, Mr. Bem
Goong, confirmed this to our correspondent on Monday.

“Well, if you want further clarification on the issue, wait for Tuesday.
The minister will speak on it”, Goong told our correspondent.

The minister had while declaring open a Combined Policy Meeting on
admission to universities, polytechnics and other higher institutions, on
Thursday in Abuja, said it was unnecessary subjecting candidates to
another round of examination after the UTME conducted by JAMB.

But while many stakeholders like the former Pro-Chancellor of the
University of Lagos, Chief Afe Babalola (SAN), have criticised the move
to stop the post-UTME, the immediate past Executive Secretary of the
National Universities Commission, Prof. Peter Okebukola, says there is
need to handle the issue with caution.
According to Okebukola, the post-UTME as practised in many of the
universities nowadays is far from what stakeholders agreed on in 2004.
He notes, “It was a tough battle which we fought under the leadership
of Mrs. Chinwe Obaji as Minister of Education. We got the blessing of
former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the National Assembly to do
the following: (a) maximum charge to candidates for the exercise should
be N1,000; and (b) candidates should be screened not with the kind of
test used by JAMB but through other mechanisms. The screening was
agreed with all vice-chancellors to be through oral interview and essay,
which JAMB’s assessment does not cover.
“More than ever before, we need to admit into our universities,
secondary school leavers, from the large pool, who have at least two
characteristics. (A) They must have the minimum cognitive competence
in the relevant subjects in the discipline they wish to study; and (b)
competence in written and oral English, critical thinking and ability to
present ideas in logical sequence befitting of undergraduates in Africa’s
most-expansive and well-regarded university system. JAMB’s UTME
targets only the first characteristic; while the university-level
screening should measure the second.”
Contributing, the VC, Redeemer’s University, Ede, Osun State, Prof.
Debo Adeyewa, calls for a more appropriate concept of “screening” to
select the best candidates for university education.
He states, “In the first place, we need to recollect the circumstances
that necessitated the post-UTME examination by universities. The
examinations conducted by JAMB were not credible and every sincere
citizen of this country would readily attest to this. The ‘fantastic’
scores obtained through JAMB were neither correlating with the results
of post-UTME conducted in universities nor with their poor performances after admission. In fact, we found that the most credible and reliable range of scores were those within 200 – 240 marks.
“Although the credibility of JAMB scores has improved recently with the
computer-based examinations, it is too soon to conclude that the
credibility issue has been put to rest.
“It is also important to realise that each university is autonomous and
could decide on the parameters for admission, including the need for
interviews. I would subscribe, therefore, to the more appropriate
concept of “screening” to select the best candidates even if post-UTME
is scrapped.”

Must read: FG scraps Post Utme in institutions 
Meanwhile, a lecturer in the Department of Psychology, Obafemi
Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Prof. Toba Elegbeleye, says
the scrapping of post-UTME and adopting 180 as the cut-off mark would
only make a bad case worse.
The JAMB Registrar, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, last Thursday also pegged the
qualifying cut-off mark for candidates at 180 points.
But Elegbeleye says, “There is a reason we got to this path and that
reason was that the admission conducted by JAMB was a little bit untidy
and we discovered that it lacked every element of validity because a
student that scored 380 could get to the university and not be able to
pass a single course.
“That was when universities decided that they should be granted little
autonomy to determine the kind of candidates they want to admit. So,
somebody should give a very robust and sound reason why the mark
should be cut down to 180.”
He avers that it is wrong to force all higher institutions to operate at
the same level in terms of what determines their admission criteria.

Source:Punchng.com

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