FOR the second year running, the Joint
Admissions and Matriculation Board has demonstrated an apparent lack of
capacity in conducting the computer-based test for the 2016 Unified
Tertiary Matriculation Examination. The hitches recorded and candidates’
lamentations will compel any discernible person to query its adoption
when the infrastructure for its success is grossly inadequate.
Reports of internet failure, computer
glitches, power outages, incompatible questions and answers, difficulty
in down-loading question papers, computers without mouse or with
keyboard problems, posting of candidates outside the state they
registered for the examination were rampant; as was the case in 2015.
But most unusual were the 40 marks awarded to some candidates extremely
handicapped by these difficulties, and the double results JAMB issued in
some cases. That marks were arbitrarily awarded was an admission of
grave error, and it raises integrity questions on this year’s exam.
The exam, which began on February 27 in
521 centres across the country, ended on March 19. The Minister of
Education, Adamu Adamu, who was at one of the centres in Abuja on an
inspection visit, expressed concern about the plight of candidates who
had not been accustomed to using a computer. He said, “I have sympathy
for candidates who are not computer-literate and there are many of them.
I think we should combine CBT with paper examination for sometime but
definitely, the future is for computer.” Absolutely!
Many candidates and their parents share
the minister’s concern, too. A distraught mother to a candidate –
Tobiloba, who sat the exam at MTI College, Surulere, Lagos – is seeking
another test for her daughter because she believed that her daughter is
brilliant, and could easily have passed the examination, but for the
challenges she did not create that day. Her computer tripped off
repeatedly during the test. She logged in and saw mathematics, chemistry
and physics papers complete. But when the computer tripped off again, a
second log-in showed as follows: mathematics 46, chemistry 25 and
physics 25 questions, instead of 50 each.
Desmond Peters, another parent, posits,
“It is obvious that we are not ripe for this technology yet.” The JAMB
Registrar, Dibu Ojerinde, will be hard put to dispute this assertion.
Although the CBT mode was fully introduced last year to address the
challenges posed by the paper-pencil method, its release of results
within 24 hours and serving as an effective bulwark against cheating are
not sufficient grounds for the board to overlook the inherent mounting
obstacles or complaints thereto. This is why the House of
Representatives on Thursday advised the Federal Ministry of Education to
direct JAMB to return to the old system or alternatively, make it
optional. Earlier, some candidates had protested in Lagos, demanding the
cancellation of this year’s test, following the lapses that attended
it.
Apart from a few elite schools, the
majority of which are privately owned, computer education in secondary
schools in the country is a non-starter. This was attested to last year
by one of the teachers who participated in the national competition for
the Teacher of the Year Award. He told the interview panel chaired by
Pat Utomi, “In my school, we teach computer on chalkboard.” Such schools
are aplenty; even more are colleges where students have neither
theoretical nor practical knowledge of computer. Yet, these schools
present candidates for the CBT.
It is this category of UTME candidates
that rush to learn how to fiddle with computer keyboards at cybercafés
just to sit the examination. They leave the exam halls with forlorn
faces, terribly upset and conscious of the fact that they did not
perform well, not because they are not intelligent, but because the
system failed them. This has gone on for two years, denying admissions
to otherwise brilliant youths, whose future is jeopardised in the
process. This cannot continue.
The minister should, therefore,
demonstrate that his sympathy for this group of candidates is real by
ensuring that CBT is made optional in the 2017 edition. It will reduce
the degree of failure orchestrated by hitches; and narrow the chances of
a candidate from Lagos being given a centre in Warri, or candidate,
like Juwon Medaiyese, from Ilorin going to Minna to sit the test. A
level playing field has to be created for all the candidates, otherwise,
JAMB will largely be seen as fleecing the candidates and their parents
annually.
It should be acknowledged, however, that
the board meant well by introducing the CBT, as it aligns with
modernity and advances the frontiers of Information Communication
Technology education. But the bitter truth is that there is a mismatch
between the present level of our education and the computer literacy
culture being imposed on it.
What’s more; Nigeria is ravaged by
infrastructure deficits like gross inadequacy in electricity supply,
broadband penetration and alternative source of power. As the UTME
lasted, power supply nationwide dipped to 3,449.53 megawatts for a
country of about 170 million people, according to statistics from the
Ministry of Power. Progress will remain a mirage with the UTME’s CBT if
the country does not get these indices right.
Many universities, which had for long
passed a vote-of-no-confidence in JAMB’s UTME with their conduct of
post-UTME tests to select their students, will be reinforced by this
year’s CBT short-comings to deepen the process. Globally, any university
worth its name admits its own students; we believe it is the right way
to go. It will guarantee quality and autonomy badly needed in our
universities.
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