The processes of gaining admission into
Nigerian universities have been bastardized by
the trio of JAMB, respective universities and
desperate parents. The once transparent
admission process into Nigerian universities
has degenerated into a cash and carry fraudulent system devoid of fairness, where
the highest bidder carries the day. During our
own time, there was so much anxiety over
Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board
(JAMB) examinations that students attended
all manners of extra-mural studies to pass. With the passage of time, especially in the
early nineties, graft entered into the JAMB
admission processes. Some special centres
and villages became centres of ‘expo’ and
malpractices. This led JAMB to continue to
cancel centres where it is suspected that malpractice took place. In the process, a lot of
innocent students were lumped for
punishment with the guilty. Years later
schools started employing the services of
policemen and other law officers to stem the
tide of malpractice. Two years into using the policemen, they too became conduit pipes for
the distribution of leaked answer scripts and
their usefulness was destroyed.
The situation degenerated so much that
answer scripts were leaked from either JAMB
office in Lagos or respective zonal centres. In 1995 particularly, I remembered students
hawking JAMB question papers eighteen hours
to the examinations. Those who felt the
papers were fake got the shockers of their
lives when they discovered that their honesty
and patriotic home training was mocked on the exams hall. Few years ago, I heard that
some students distributed solved probable
JAMB answers A, B, C, D, E, etc on facebook to
their friends.
Speaking on the level of compromise
associated with the examination, the Registrar of JAMB, Prof Dibu Ojerinde said that “In 2012 UTME, we had some disturbing news of
extortion of money from innocent candidates
by greedy proprietors and supervisors all these
persons will be brought to book,” Earlier in that 2011 he told news men that “JAMB is currently investigating some results of 7, 504
candidates, from some centres which are
suspicious…the results must undergo further
screening because of the unusual
performances recorded by candidates from
those centre”. Constant malpractice coupled with incessant
demands for university autonomy by lecturers
under the aegis of Academic Staff of Nigerian
Universities (ASUU), Committee of Vice
Chancellors and other university pressure
groups led to the acceding of the request for individual universities to set exams for
prospective students. This led to the
introduction of Post-University Tertiary
Matriculation Examinations (Post-UTME)
exams. This Post-UTME examination is yet to
solve the problems associated with the earlier UTME, UME AND JAMB exams.
In the first instances, parents have to send or
travel with their wards to different universities
to write Post-UTME exams. A student may
travel from Enugu to Abuja to write Post-UTME
for University of Abuja, and then travels again to Lagos to write for University of Lagos, then
moves to Port Harcourt to write that of
University of Port Harcourt and back to base to
sit for Enugu State University of Science and
Technology’s exams, criss-crossing thousands
of kilometers across dangerous countryside to write exams. The students usually purchases
exorbitant exams forms from all these
schools, travel to these locations, and lodge in
hotels or with boyfriends, girl friends and
sugar mummies in places if the cost of hotel
accommodation is unaffordable. I inquired of a girl in Abuja some time in 2009 from her
brother and was told that the girl traveled to
Lagos to write Post-UTME exams and never
returned back again. Whether defilers, robbers
or ritualists caught hold of her and cut her
br**sts, eyes etc for rituals, nobody could tell. In 2012 three prospective students traveling
to UNN, Nsukka for Post-UTME got involved in
auto crash. I do not know whether they died
after being rushed to the hospital. During the
same phased examinations, the process was
cancelled midway because the university discovered that the papers actually leaked the
night before. Some students told me that they
had the answers in their phones and
distributed such through text messages hours
before the exams. The authorities told the
students to go home and come back later to rewrite the papers at the expense of parents
and sponsors. It was later discovered that
some university staff leaked the papers to
their wards who in turn sold same to the
highest bidders. The embarrassed authorities
with the aid of the police arrested the erring staffers for prosecution.
Despite all these Post-UTME exams, some
parents still pay for their ward’s admission.
Last year, a family told me that they paid
N400.000 for their ward to read medicine in a
university in Lagos, while another family confided that they paid N240, 000 to help
their ward secure admission to read law in
Port-Harcourt. This process disenfranchises
those who are supposed to be on the merit
list because highest bidders have taken over
their chances. This is because some university staffers reserve lots of chances for themselves
which they can sell or dispense as they deem
fit.
This non-transparent process have made
many parents to sell family land, properties
and life savings to send their frustrated wards to schools in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Russia
while few buoyant ones send theirs to UK for
admission. I have unenthusiastically assisted
some frustrated families with finance to send
their wards to some of these East-European
schools and I kept on pondering at how Nigeria is enriching other people’s economy
due to moronic and educational policies. This
results in capital flight and the enrichment of
other nation’s education industry. Those who
are not buoyant for overseas enrollment litter
the streets of Nigeria and constitutes nuisance to the society. Many have joined robbery,
kidnapping and prostitution gangs because
idle minds are devils workshops.
Nigeria’s Minister of Education Professor
Ruqayyatu Rufai recently told a news
conference that “out of the over 1.7million students that sat for the examinations in
2013, only 500,000 will gain admission”. This means that 1.2 million students will be
disappointed. In 2012, 1,503, 931 students
sat for the exams and about 450,000 was
admitted. In 2011 it was 1,493,603 with
about 420,000 getting admitted. In 2010
according to JAMB about 1,375,642 sat for the exams with spaces for less than
400,000. From the JAMB statistics, it is obvious
that about 900,000 applicants were
disappointed in 2010; 1 million applicants in
2011, 1.1 million others in 2012, 1.2 million
‘disappointed’ in 2013 and probably 1.4 million come 2014.
Two years ago the Nigerian Senate made
attempts to scrap Post-UTME exams citing
corruption and duplication of functions. The
process failed because the lawmakers couldn’t
find a common ground of acceptance. Around my residence in Abuja
lots of brilliant students have been writing
JAMB and Post- UTME exams for many years
and yet cannot get admission. Some of them
have gotten admitted only for their names to
disappear from the merit list. According to their frustrated parents, the number on the
merit list for some departments of their choice
are not up to 20% while the rest is admission
by favoritism. In the same neighborhood,
some frustrated parents used political party
links and corrupt processes to get their wards admitted.
The solution to these anomalies is for NUC to
relax processes for establishment of
universities. Their stringent condition is such
that only mega funded billionaire institutions
and individuals can dare it. How come Ghana is wooing Nigerian students to go there and
study? They have enough quality schools to
contain their applicants and they maintained
qualitative small universities established at
little cost. Secondly JAMB should ensure that
individual schools admit at least 50% of those who write Post-UTME exams on the merit list.
The amount of money spent on these Post-
UTME exams should be reduced and if the
universities cannot guarantee transparency,
the process should be scraped. Nigeria
admission process have been compromised by individual universities, JAMB, NUC, parents
and applicants, and God will not leave some
people unpunished whose actions or inaction
contributed to the bastardization of the once
transparent admission process.
Nigerian universities have been bastardized by
the trio of JAMB, respective universities and
desperate parents. The once transparent
admission process into Nigerian universities
has degenerated into a cash and carry fraudulent system devoid of fairness, where
the highest bidder carries the day. During our
own time, there was so much anxiety over
Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board
(JAMB) examinations that students attended
all manners of extra-mural studies to pass. With the passage of time, especially in the
early nineties, graft entered into the JAMB
admission processes. Some special centres
and villages became centres of ‘expo’ and
malpractices. This led JAMB to continue to
cancel centres where it is suspected that malpractice took place. In the process, a lot of
innocent students were lumped for
punishment with the guilty. Years later
schools started employing the services of
policemen and other law officers to stem the
tide of malpractice. Two years into using the policemen, they too became conduit pipes for
the distribution of leaked answer scripts and
their usefulness was destroyed.
The situation degenerated so much that
answer scripts were leaked from either JAMB
office in Lagos or respective zonal centres. In 1995 particularly, I remembered students
hawking JAMB question papers eighteen hours
to the examinations. Those who felt the
papers were fake got the shockers of their
lives when they discovered that their honesty
and patriotic home training was mocked on the exams hall. Few years ago, I heard that
some students distributed solved probable
JAMB answers A, B, C, D, E, etc on facebook to
their friends.
Speaking on the level of compromise
associated with the examination, the Registrar of JAMB, Prof Dibu Ojerinde said that “In 2012 UTME, we had some disturbing news of
extortion of money from innocent candidates
by greedy proprietors and supervisors all these
persons will be brought to book,” Earlier in that 2011 he told news men that “JAMB is currently investigating some results of 7, 504
candidates, from some centres which are
suspicious…the results must undergo further
screening because of the unusual
performances recorded by candidates from
those centre”. Constant malpractice coupled with incessant
demands for university autonomy by lecturers
under the aegis of Academic Staff of Nigerian
Universities (ASUU), Committee of Vice
Chancellors and other university pressure
groups led to the acceding of the request for individual universities to set exams for
prospective students. This led to the
introduction of Post-University Tertiary
Matriculation Examinations (Post-UTME)
exams. This Post-UTME examination is yet to
solve the problems associated with the earlier UTME, UME AND JAMB exams.
In the first instances, parents have to send or
travel with their wards to different universities
to write Post-UTME exams. A student may
travel from Enugu to Abuja to write Post-UTME
for University of Abuja, and then travels again to Lagos to write for University of Lagos, then
moves to Port Harcourt to write that of
University of Port Harcourt and back to base to
sit for Enugu State University of Science and
Technology’s exams, criss-crossing thousands
of kilometers across dangerous countryside to write exams. The students usually purchases
exorbitant exams forms from all these
schools, travel to these locations, and lodge in
hotels or with boyfriends, girl friends and
sugar mummies in places if the cost of hotel
accommodation is unaffordable. I inquired of a girl in Abuja some time in 2009 from her
brother and was told that the girl traveled to
Lagos to write Post-UTME exams and never
returned back again. Whether defilers, robbers
or ritualists caught hold of her and cut her
br**sts, eyes etc for rituals, nobody could tell. In 2012 three prospective students traveling
to UNN, Nsukka for Post-UTME got involved in
auto crash. I do not know whether they died
after being rushed to the hospital. During the
same phased examinations, the process was
cancelled midway because the university discovered that the papers actually leaked the
night before. Some students told me that they
had the answers in their phones and
distributed such through text messages hours
before the exams. The authorities told the
students to go home and come back later to rewrite the papers at the expense of parents
and sponsors. It was later discovered that
some university staff leaked the papers to
their wards who in turn sold same to the
highest bidders. The embarrassed authorities
with the aid of the police arrested the erring staffers for prosecution.
Despite all these Post-UTME exams, some
parents still pay for their ward’s admission.
Last year, a family told me that they paid
N400.000 for their ward to read medicine in a
university in Lagos, while another family confided that they paid N240, 000 to help
their ward secure admission to read law in
Port-Harcourt. This process disenfranchises
those who are supposed to be on the merit
list because highest bidders have taken over
their chances. This is because some university staffers reserve lots of chances for themselves
which they can sell or dispense as they deem
fit.
This non-transparent process have made
many parents to sell family land, properties
and life savings to send their frustrated wards to schools in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Russia
while few buoyant ones send theirs to UK for
admission. I have unenthusiastically assisted
some frustrated families with finance to send
their wards to some of these East-European
schools and I kept on pondering at how Nigeria is enriching other people’s economy
due to moronic and educational policies. This
results in capital flight and the enrichment of
other nation’s education industry. Those who
are not buoyant for overseas enrollment litter
the streets of Nigeria and constitutes nuisance to the society. Many have joined robbery,
kidnapping and prostitution gangs because
idle minds are devils workshops.
Nigeria’s Minister of Education Professor
Ruqayyatu Rufai recently told a news
conference that “out of the over 1.7million students that sat for the examinations in
2013, only 500,000 will gain admission”. This means that 1.2 million students will be
disappointed. In 2012, 1,503, 931 students
sat for the exams and about 450,000 was
admitted. In 2011 it was 1,493,603 with
about 420,000 getting admitted. In 2010
according to JAMB about 1,375,642 sat for the exams with spaces for less than
400,000. From the JAMB statistics, it is obvious
that about 900,000 applicants were
disappointed in 2010; 1 million applicants in
2011, 1.1 million others in 2012, 1.2 million
‘disappointed’ in 2013 and probably 1.4 million come 2014.
Two years ago the Nigerian Senate made
attempts to scrap Post-UTME exams citing
corruption and duplication of functions. The
process failed because the lawmakers couldn’t
find a common ground of acceptance. Around my residence in Abuja
lots of brilliant students have been writing
JAMB and Post- UTME exams for many years
and yet cannot get admission. Some of them
have gotten admitted only for their names to
disappear from the merit list. According to their frustrated parents, the number on the
merit list for some departments of their choice
are not up to 20% while the rest is admission
by favoritism. In the same neighborhood,
some frustrated parents used political party
links and corrupt processes to get their wards admitted.
The solution to these anomalies is for NUC to
relax processes for establishment of
universities. Their stringent condition is such
that only mega funded billionaire institutions
and individuals can dare it. How come Ghana is wooing Nigerian students to go there and
study? They have enough quality schools to
contain their applicants and they maintained
qualitative small universities established at
little cost. Secondly JAMB should ensure that
individual schools admit at least 50% of those who write Post-UTME exams on the merit list.
The amount of money spent on these Post-
UTME exams should be reduced and if the
universities cannot guarantee transparency,
the process should be scraped. Nigeria
admission process have been compromised by individual universities, JAMB, NUC, parents
and applicants, and God will not leave some
people unpunished whose actions or inaction
contributed to the bastardization of the once
transparent admission process.
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