Press statement
The
Education Rights Campaign (ERC) condemns in strong terms the unwarranted
hardship meted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on
applicants for this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
Stories of
different degree of hardship experienced by this year’s UTME candidates and their
parents is rife in the media. From congested registration centres to highhandedness
of security operatives, there are indications that JAMB is about to organize
one of the worst examinations in the history of the board.
The JAMB
officialdom has tried to justify this unnecessary hardship as an inevitable
consequence of the innovations and reforms it has had to introduce to make the admission
process more resistant to manipulation and cheating. We beg to disagree.
As we have
argued severally, so long as shortage of admission spaces continue to exist,
the admission process will remain brutally competitive and as such continue to
succumb to malpractice, manipulation and racketeering. Therefore unless
government addresses the problem of shortage of admission spaces by improving
funding to the education sector and ensuring that these funds are judiciously
used to expand facilities in the existing tertiary institutions while
establishing more, no effort to curb examination malpractice and racketeering
will succeed.
As all can
see, despite JAMB’s efforts over the years and that of others to address the
problem of examination malpractice and admission racketeering, these challenges
continue to rise astronomically. Even with the introduction of Post-UTME,
admission manipulation and racketeering has not abated. The reason for this is
not farfetched. It is simply because JAMB’s and government’s aspirations to rid
the admission process of malpractice is anchored on entirely false assumptions
and perspectives.
Government
and JAMB erroneously believe that examination malpractice is a crime that can
be curbed through the development of tighter controls and monitoring as well as
deployment of technology to strengthen the integrity of the examination
process. This was the reason why the examination body launched the Computer
Based Test few years ago. But instead of the CBT reducing examination
malpractice, it has been riddled with all kinds of complaints. Especially in
the prevailing condition of inadequate computer illiteracy and little or no
infrastructure to support it, the CBT has only succeeded in putting the
examination process in further chaos.
The
underpinning reason for the endemic nature of examination malpractices and
admission racketeering remains the inadequate admission spaces in the public
universities, polytechnics and colleges of education and the rabid competition
this has created in the hearts and minds of admission seekers and parents. Only
improved funding and expansion of the carrying capacity of existing tertiary
institutions as well as a plan to establish more can begin to eliminate the
conditions and motivations for examination malpractice and admission
racketeering.
Although JAMB
claims that it registered over 600, 000 candidates in the first few days after
the commencement of the registration, media reports still show that times two
of that figure are facing varying degrees of hardship as far as registration is
concerned. There are reasons to believe that the centralization of the
registration exercise is in the hand of JAMB, and certain vested
interests alone, has hugely congested the whole process beyond what the
examination body can handle. We therefore call for a return to the
decentralized process of registration where candidates can freely walk into any
cyber cafe to register for UTME with little stress.
However,
JAMB is equally giving Nigerians reason to believe that the self-induced
difficulties experienced currently are part of systematic plans to prune down
admission seekers from the beginning. This may be in bid to prevent bringing
into limelight the inadequate spaces in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions that
are not commensurate with figures of teeming population of admission seekers.
Already, the examination body has made the choice of private institutions
compulsory for Nigerians, who obviously cannot afford the outrageous fees of
these institutions based on the analysis of current income and inflation rates.
The
worsening crisis of admission in the country, as it has been reiterated by the
ERC many times is a product of poor funding and neglect of Nigeria’s public
education system. A paltry spending of 8-10% of the nation’s budget is
earmarked for primary, secondary and tertiary institutions in the country. This
means, among other things, that existing institutions cannot be expanded to
meet up with growing rate of admission seekers. It is quite unfortunate that a
country like Nigeria with its worrisome record of “out of school” children
operate budgetary policies that discourage mass literacy. The recent reports of
looted revenues have shown for all to see that Nigeria has the economic stamina
to implement UNESCO recommendation of 26% budgetary allocation to education on
yearly basis.
We are
therefore certain that commitment of significant revenues to developing public
education would ameliorate glut of admission seekers as currently experienced.
The Education Rights Campaign (ERC) put the blame for 2017 UTME registration
crisis at the door step of the Buhari-led government, and call on education
workers’ unions, parents and civil society groups to renew the struggle for
improved funding of the education sector and democratic control and management
of schools.
Hassan Taiwo Soweto Ibukun Omole
National Coordinator National Secretary
(07033697259)
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