THE Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says that most Nigerian universities are dropping agitation for the conduct of post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (post-UTME) based on the improvement and credibility in the processes of test administration and selection of candidates.
The public communication advisor of JAMB, Dr Fabian Benjamin in an interview with Nigerian Tribune, noted that technology has played a key role in this, saying that the JAMB registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede took advantage of technology to transform the entire process to curb infractions.
He said the Central Admission Processing System (CAPS) introduced in 2017 by Oloyede is also a game-changer in the board’s processes, saying admission hitherto was done manually and, as such, opened to all forms of irregularities.
Benjamin, disclosed that registration of candidates for the UTME as simple as people might think, was fundamental to getting the entire process right or wrong, adding that the board has overtime invested a lot in technology to tackle infractions early in the exercise.
The board had unearthed that candidates used to hire “professional examination takers” to register and sit the examination for them.
Benjamin said this prompted Oloyede to introduce biometric verification of candidates and mandatory use of National Identification Number (NIN) for registration, among other innovations he brought to bear in the process of registration.
“Most universities without anybody compelling them have begun to drop the agitation for post-UTME because of the credibility and the openness in the entire process of registration, examination and admissions,” he said.
It was gathered that most of the universities now concentrate more on the screening of credentials paraded by candidates rather than conducting another examination after UTME for candidates who picked their institutions as first choice.
He added: “Professor Oloyede’s achievements can be categorised into three or four classes. The first is the examination itself. When we talk about examination, we are looking at a group of all the processes in that particular class, ranging from the registration, examination and admissions.
“We also have the human component of the processes, that is welfare of staff, development of staff, integrity and so on. We also have the financial management aspect of it.
“Firstly, we must talk about the essence of the board itself. Looking at our name as the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, examination is just accidental. If we have opportunity of conducting the admissions without the examination, we would have done that. However, in order to ensure equity and fairness, examination became the vehicle for us to ensure no candidate has cheated.
“Examination malpractice actually starts from the registration stage. If you get it wrong from this stage, there is nothing you can do at the examination stage to right the wrong.
“On examination, Oloyede introduced a uniform Computer Based Test, (CBT)centres and standard verification of the centres where you must have a total of 250 system and another 25 as backups as well as CCTV Cameras that will give real time monitoring during examination, where you must have particular some kind of software installed in your system because aside being monitored by CCTV cameras, your system are also being monitored by the board from its headquarters.
“Some of these among others have also added value to the conduct of the examination.
He noted that apart from transparency and prudent management of the finances of the board, the JAMB registrar deliberately opened up the processes for people to see what is being done and brought stakeholders also to participate in the processes.
He said through this transparency and curbing of wastages, the board, under Oloyede’s watch, was able to remit billions of Naira to the Federal Government’s coffers without necessarily increasing the cost of registration fees. He added that staff development was also prioritised and that jobs which were hitherto done by outsiders are now being carried out by staff because of training and retraining.
On use of A’Level certificates for Direct Entry admission, Benjamin said: “All along we had concentrated on the UTME part of our processes unknown to us that the Direct Entry component was one of the areas that stakeholders were abusing and doing all manner of things.
“Because we have put much check on UTME, some of them were running to Direct Entry, because it gives them the opportunity to not sit the examination and then get admission into 200 level.
“But when we began to look at it, revelation came through Bayero University, Kano, where they decided to screen about 146 candidates who came into their university through Direct Entry component and only six results were genuine and that sounded the alarm that something is fishy and then we swung into action and begin to look into the process and what we discovered was very alarming.
“So, we introduced what is called the Post-Secondary Education Data System, NIPEDS, that will look at whatever this A’Level component is bringing and we verify them for us to give opportunity to those only whose certificates are genuine.
“We started from last year but we have consolidated more this year, that for every candidate who registers for Direct Entry, their result must be verified. If that result is not verified, you are not going to be admitted.
“So, whatever result they are submitting must be verified. We discovered that a lot of certificates were just flying left right and centre. Everybody was just issuing A’Level certificates and these candidates were grabbing it and we are putting stop to that”.
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