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Lowering of university cut-off mark
Olubode Olusesan / 17 hours ago

For a country where a candidate scored 247 marks in 1983 to study philosophy at the University of Ife without being considered because of its competitiveness, the Tuesday decision of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board to make 120 out of 400 maximum points as the cut-off mark for admission to universities for the 2017/2018 academic session provides an opportunity for soul-searching.

The Registrar of JAMB, Is’haq Oloyede, who announced this in Abuja, said the decision was reached after a policy meeting with vice-chancellors, provosts and rectors of colleges of education and polytechnics respectively. Besides the universities, CoEs and polytechnics have 100 cut-off mark. Instructively, the pronouncement has fostered a wave of excoriation in the country because of its pernicious implications, especially on quality. The registrar wants us to believe that the resolution was consensual.

The action cannot be rationalised in any way, as it is decidedly retrogressive and suspicious. A total of 1.7 million candidates sat this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, out of which 569,395 of them scored 200, which is 50 per cent, and above, just as 23 per cent of the total candidates scored below 160. The performance breakdown showed that a sufficient number of candidates scored more than the 180 cut-off mark for last year, enough for JAMB to raise the bar, instead of doing otherwise.

Certainly, the action is not in the national interest, nor that of candidates seeking quality university education. We also believe that no vice-chancellor worth his salt will acquiesce to this debasement of standards, except those who are time-servers and vehicles for sectional and unedifying agenda. Although Oloyede maintained that universities were at liberty to set their own benchmarks and conduct post-UTME tests to determine those to admit, it does not obviate the fact that some candidates with the 120 cut-off will secure admission, while many with more than 200 score will be denied. And that is the danger.

No doubt, this set-up will worsen corruption and injustice already grafted in the system, which universities, as citadels of learning, are not established to promote. The 120 cut-off mark translates to 30 per cent, which is a rank failure in any standard examination in the world. Accepting it as Nigeria’s admission benchmark bodes ill for quality university education. The import of the decision is that it is an official imprimatur of mediocrity or violence to the system.

Universities, by their global nature, are centres of excellence: for teaching, learning, research and innovation. It is a hallowed intellectual space for competition and hard work; and not for complacency or indolence. Any candidate who scores 120 out of 400 marks, or is admitted with it, is simply not ready just for university learning.

Britain that bequeathed western education to Nigeria had introduced the Advanced Level education system, through which intellectually ill-equipped materials are noticed with their poor grades, and weeded out. While the system has since been discarded here, Britain still uses it. The same could be said of the defunct 6-3-3-4 system of education. Its implementation did not ferret out pupils without the required intelligence quotient to continue academic pursuits. Mass promotion of pupils to the next class was a new low in many states, thus creating the present below average candidates aspiring to acquire university education.

There is a sense in which it could be said, therefore, that the lowered cut-off mark is a well orchestrated plan to extend the topsy-turvy in admission standards into the 104 Unity Colleges to higher education. This epic mockery of merit ensured that a pupil from Anambra or Imo State, for example, scored 138 or 139 out of 200 marks to be admitted, whereas his or her counterpart from Yobe and Taraba states needed just 2 and 3 marks to attend the same school, as was the case in 2013. This scenario has governed intakes for years now, thereby eroding excellence for which those schools were renowned in the remote past.

Absurdities in university admission in Nigeria and the reproach degrees churned out receive from within and outside our shores, call for urgent remedial action. Many Nigerians have called for the re-introduction of A-Level examinations to serve as a clearing house. Government should admit its mistakes and consider this, the way it did with the public agitation for history to return to the classroom.

The fundamental purpose of university is the discovery and dissemination of knowledge for the betterment of communities and society writ large. And the reputation of a university is determined by the quality of its graduates. This is why Oxford University draws attention to foreign students seeking its offer by stating, “Please be aware that competition for places at Oxford is very strong.” This is why its conditional offer for students studying A-Levels range between A* A* A and AAA. In Scotland, a candidate is required to score AA for two subjects or AAB for three subjects.

For a candidate taking the redesigned Scholastic Aptitude Test – the American system – Oxford says, as from 2016, is expected to achieve SAT Reasoning Test with at least 1,400 in Critical Reading and Mathematics and also 700 or more in Writing, giving a combined score of at least 2,100 (out of 2400). In Singapore too, students are reminded that they will undergo competitive examination conducted and evaluated by the university itself. “Good scores are expected out of students,” is a strong advisory.

When these pictures are juxtaposed with the JAMB controversial benchmark of 120, it becomes obvious that our education policymakers are out of tune with global realities. These comparisons are imperative because graduates all over the world end up in one place: the global job market. Our degrees are already being spurned locally, with many employers of labour describing many graduates as unemployable, unable to even write passable applications. How long are we going to play politics with education?

The situation need not be worsened with the latest scandalous admission regulation. The reaction of Afe Babalola, proprietor of a private university, to this howler, rejecting it and calling for an urgent education summit, puts a lie to the claim that the 120 benchmark was a unanimous decision of stakeholders. Illegal 17,160 intakes are in the universities, according to the JAMB boss. These were candidates that could not pass the UTME. A leeway should not be created for them. The 120 cut-off serves this dubious objective. We completely reject it.

JAMB pegs varsity admission cut-off mark at 120
Ayodele / 2 days ago

Adelani Adepegba, Abuja

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board on Tuesday pegged the minimum cut-off mark for admissions into universities at 120.

The decision was taken in collaboration with Vice Chancellors, Rectors and Provosts of higher institutions in the country at a combined policy meeting on admissions into universities, polytechnics and other higher institutions in Nigeria, in Abuja, on Tuesday.

The stakeholders also adopted 100 as the minimum cut-off mark for admission into polytechnics.

They agreed that admission into first choice universities should close on October 15 while December 15, 2017 was set as the closing date for second choice admission by institutions.

JAMB Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede said universities, with the decision, are not to go below the minimum 120 cut-off points adopted by the meeting for admissions.

He called for the adoption of flexible cut-off marks for admission processes by higher institutions in the country.

He said, “What JAMB has done is to recommend; We will only determine the minimum, whatever you determine as your admission cut-off mark is your decision.

“The Senate and academic boards of universities should be allowed to determine their cut-off marks.”

The Registrar said the board discovered over 17,160 illegally admitted students by higher institutions, adding that the body has regularized some of them.

He said, “30 % of those in higher institutions do not take JAMB or have less than the cut-off marks.

“The admission process is now automated with direct involvement of the registrar of JAMB for final approval.

“We have agreed to regularize admissions that were done under the table this year. From next year we will not accept anything like that.”

Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu described as a mistake, the Federal Government’s ban on tests conducted by universities after the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations.

He explained that post-UTME was banned because it had become an avenue for corruption.

Adamu however encouraged higher institutions to conduct aptitude tests for candidates seeking admission, and pegged the fee for the test at N2000.

Senate bill on illegal recruitment will get quick passage – Saraki
Ayodele / 14 hours ago

Leke Baiyewu, Abuja

President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, has said the Senate would accelerate the passage of the Existing Vacancies in the Federal Civil Service (Prohibition) Bill, once it resumes from recess in September.

In a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Yusuph Olaniyonu, Saraki said the bill, which is currently due for the second reading, would be given priority as one of the Senate’s legislative interventions to curb the increasing rate of illegal recruitment into Federal Government agencies.

He said, “The Existing Vacancies Bill will put in place clear-cut procedures that will help to curb and possibly end the trend of ‘silent or underground recruitment.’ This country belongs to every Nigerian and, as such, all vacancies that exist in the Federal Civil Service must be properly advertised to give every Nigerian that meet the requirement a chance to apply.”

Saraki also stated that the objective of the bill, which was sponsored by the Deputy Minority Whip, Senator Biodun Olujimi, would be to promote the integrity and transparency in the recruitment of personnel into the Federal Civil Service by making it an offence for a federal ministry, agency or parastatal to fill existing vacancies if such vacancies have not been advertised publicly.

The Senate President added, “With this bill, we will set time-frames for recruitment and the publication of recruitment in national dailies. This will make it the duty of the heads of government agencies and ministries to ensure compliance or face punitive measures.

“Additionally, this bill will help to ensure that the mandate of the Federal Character Commission is followed to the letter, by imposing punitive measures on those that choose to intentionally flout the law by embarking on secret recruitment exercises within the MDAs under their purview.

“This illegal recruitment trend needs to stop, and when we resume, we will begin to work towards enshrining this in our laws.”

EDUCATION
Oloyede faults examination centres, reveals plans for mega centres

Published May 18, 2017
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JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede


The Registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, has disqualified some centres currently being used for its ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.

He also announced the examination body’s resolve to collaborate with key stakeholders to establish mega centres for the conduct of its examination.

Oloyede announced this at a news conference in Lagos on Thursday, after on-the-spot assessments of some Computer-Based Testing centres where the UTME was being conducted in the city.

He said he was not impressed with the standards of facilities at some of the centres, adding that the Board needed to be more stringent.

According to him, most of the centres currently being used for the examination fell short of the standards.
“Having gone round 69 centres in Lagos alone, I have disqualified four.

“In fact, I do not see up to 30 of these centres being up-to-date and meeting our set rules. We will re-assess these centres in order to protect the sanctity of our examination,’’ the registrar said.

“The plan currently on ground is to collaborate with my colleague professors and some other key stakeholders on how to create mega centres with a capacity to sit about 1,500 candidates at once in a centre.

“We will encourage those who have what it takes to establish CBT centres to do it.

“This is because we no longer want to work with some private centre owners,’’ he added.





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