First, the registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) must be commended for his service to the nation. He has turned a loss-making Board into one that has become a profit-center for the Nigerian government. Unfortunately, that success is the reason why some of us are not happy. Simply, JAMB should not be another LNG or NNPC which makes money to send excesses to the federal government.
The only thing Nigeria offers the common man today is subsidized tertiary education. Making access to it affordable will remain a key pillar for families to rise. And as part of it, JAMB results MUST not expire after a year. It makes no sense to subject young people to this seasonable stress.
I propose for all results to expire after three years. That will reduce the burden for young people since not getting admitted into a university in Nigeria is not really about not being able to pass, but largely access. You have close to 2 million writing the exams for available slots of 500k across the colleges. Many of those 1.5m who will pass but cannot find space. Then,next year, they have to begin from afresh.
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I call on the government to fix this mess even as we celebrate another record of JAMB revenue: N8.6 billion in Q1 2022! As JAMB celebrates another “registration surpasses expectation’ moment, I want the House of Assembly to understand that we have really nothing to celebrate since next year is expected to be higher as repeatedly frustrated young people will retake an exam they have passed.
Phase out the 1 year expiration of JAMB results; I recommend a 3-year minimum.
At the close of the registration for the 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and Direct Entry (DE) programme on Saturday, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) said a total of 1,837,011 candidates were successfully captured in the exercise that took place nationwide between February 19 and March 26.
This is contained in the latest weekly bulletin by JAMB which was released in Sunday night.
With N4,700 registration fee paid by the applicants, JAMB has successfully generated an estimated revenue of a total of N8.6 billion.
Out of the lump sum, a total of 776 computer-based test centres that took part in the exercise will share an estimated amount of N1.3 billion at the rate of N700 per candidate registered by each of the centres.
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How does extending the expiration date increase your chances of getting admission? Let’s say you score 240 this year and couldn’t get in, and by next year more people bang in scores of 250 and above, will the university now pick your old 240 score as against the newest ones in the 250s? You may even waste the three years without getting a look in.
The problem is never about one year expiration of UTME score, but rather limited access. The population is still growing, so those finishing secondary school will still sit for the same exam, and the newer breeds hack scores better, they will outscore you, making your life more miserable.
We are solving the wrong problem, and that is why everyone remains confused. Keeping cost of tertiary education very low is the reason why ASUU and their sister unions are now on strike, we want to make it affordable while at the same time compromising quality, so at the end we are left with graduates who can’t improve the economy, so who gained?
This economy doesn’t need the number of university graduates we are producing, the jobs given to graduates today should have been for school leavers, but we have disconnected the latter from the economic system, only to have unqualified artisans everywhere.