Mass failure in Unified Matriculation Tertiary Examination (UTME) and inadequate admission space in the nation’s universities for those who manage to pass are two issues managers of the Nigerian education system have been contending with.
?
Stella Eze in this piece X-rays causes of mass failure and experts’ opinion on how to tackle the problem as well as other issues
Mass failure has become a recurring decimal in the Nation’s public examinations. Stakeholders are apprehensive at the rate of failure, which many have attributed to various reasons. The most recent and very embarrassing one was the result of the 2011 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) held on June 18, and released on June 24. Going by the statistics of performance of candidates released by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), only about 50 per cent were able to cross the 200 mark which used to be the benchmark for grading candidates. In the past, candidates were required to score at least 200 to be qualified to gain admission into any university.
?
However, the continued decline in the rate of success, as indicated by the abysmal performance in the past decade, forced the federal government to bend the rules, by reducing the pass mark to 180 in 2010. This became necessary to pave way for candidates to try their luck in another screening tests internally conducted by the universities-the post UTME screening. Post UTME was a child of circumstance, which was borne out of the need to verify candidates’ scores in
JAMB examinations which became questionable as many of those who scored very high in JAMB failed to cope with the academic rigours in the universities.
A total of 842, 941 candidates scored below 200 in the 2011 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), held on Saturday, June 18 nationwide. Only a small fraction of 2, 892 candidates scored 300 and above in the examination in which a total of 1, 493, 000 candidates participated. This, observers said would add to the number of admission seekers. Though the federal government has not come up with a national benchmark score, the figure paints a gloomy picture of a serious declining interests of students in achieving academic excellence through hard work.
?
According to the statistics released by JAMB, 201,798 candidates scored between1-169. Also, a total of 641,143 candidates got scores ranging between 170 and 199, while 485, 426 of them scored between 200 and 249. Only about 102, 068 candidates scored from 250 to 300 and above.
Though the 28, 069 incomplete results recorded in the 2011 UTME was a drastic departure from the 2010 record of about 82, 000 invalid results, the figure still remains unacceptably to high and the onus, according the JAMB Registrar, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, the examination officials are duty bound to cross check candidates’ compliance to instructions
?
It would be recalled that the exam body had to contend with public outcry over the outrageous number of candidates whose results were either seized, incomplete or invalid due to failure of the candidates to follow instructions on the question paper, which stipulated among other things that candidates shade their subject codes, numbers and question sets accordingly. Though, to reverse the ugly trend, Ojerinde had claimed to have trained examination officials on the conduct of examination with the sum of N48 million naira, the effort was still defeated.
?
Apart from the lack of seriousness of candidates and dependence on examination malpractice, some people have attributed the poor outcome of the exam to the hitches in the biometric thumb-printing screening technology introduced by JAMB.
Exam officials as well as candidates were overwhelmed by the new method of screening introduced to curtail examination fraud as well as impersonation. Though some candidates were seen cueing up as early as 6.30am to get screened, the exercise ate deep into the exam period leading to the late commencement of exams in most of the centres. Most of the centres visited in Abuja started exams 9.30 am, while a centre in Nsukka, Queen Of the Rosary Secondary School, Nsukka, commenced as late as 1 pm due to the slow biometric thumb-printing screening method introduced by the examination body.
?
Acknowledging the hitches, Ojerinde said, “To us in the JAMB, it has recorded more successes than drawbacks, for instance, the system in many centres ensured candidates were orderly and peaceful. We will want to place on record that we commend their patience in this regard, just as we are determined to rise above the few hiccups that were experienced this time around. In addition, majority of the candidates came early and the impersonators were fenced off as a result of the knowledge and utilisation of the biometrics”.
?
Though mass failure is becoming a stigma of some sort the issue of limited spaces in the nation’s universities is a hurdle to surmount yet. For instance, even those who are considered to have passed well will have to struggle for the few spaces available in the tertiary institutions. Because of the crave for university education, the number of application by first choice into the universities is overwhelming.
?
For instance University of Lagos had a total of 99, 195, with only 9,507 admission quota. A total of 89,160 applied to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, but the institution can only absorb 6,068 candidates. Unive rsity of Nigeria Nsukka has a carrying capacity of 5,970 with a total of 88, 177 to contend with. Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka has about 4, 373 carrying capacity with a total of 84,719 jostling for admission into the institution.
?
Though the National Universities Commission (NUC) had disclosed that the universities’ carrying capacity would be reviewed for 2011 academic session, based on the report of the visitation panel and accreditation exercise embarked upon by the commission, the change would be insignificant.
Looking at the trend of application based on preferred tertiary institutions, the universities still had the upper hand. While a total of 35 institutions varying from colleges of education, polytechnics, specialised institutions and monotechnics have one candidate each, other 52 institutions in these categories had less than 10 applicants also based on first choice.
?
Speaking on the low strength of the nation’s universities recently, National president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie noted that creating access does not have to be done through establishing more universities, rather, the existing ones should be expanded with more programmes and overall effective and efficient funding formula.
?
“You are talking about access, almost 80 per cent of the old generation universities have not moved to their permanent sites. If you pump in money into them to move to their permanent sites, it would open up this access we are crying about. We will now reduce all the buearocracies of creating new universities, etc. Provide more courses and programmes, more lecturers, more laboratories, and workshops, more hostels in these areas,you can take these numbers you want to spread across. We need access. I have always talked about access.
Each year we have over 1million children who want to go to the university and who are qualified in their own right. They will now admit 300,000 saying it is our carrying capacity, where will the other 700,000 go? Now we have this as a problem. The first thing is to stop politicising the education sector. Face the facts as they are. Second one is to organise an education summit. Not the one they have organised before, but a proper education summit that is well planned, that will bring stakeholders, the market women, and everybody to make input on how to fund education. We must bring some policies that make it mandatory that all of us become investors in the sector”, he noted.
?
The Executive Secretary of NUC, Prof. Julius Okojie, has also accused university authorities of being deceptive about carrying capacity of their institutions, as they overload the schools with part-time students, making it difficult for accurate data to be determined.
According to Okojie, universities’ carrying capacities are subject to constant review after each visit by the accreditation team; set up to carry out programme audit of universities. He noted that the 2011 carrying capacity for universities is still being updated and would soon be made available to the institutions for use in the admission process.