t has recently been on the news media. I mean the proposed or has it been denied, plan of the government to scrap the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board; JAMB for short.
By the way the JAMB conducts the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination UTME, for both private and public institutions in Nigeria.
It had been hoped that a board of this nature was right for Nigeria where, as at the time of the boards inauguration, not all the states in Nigeria had either state owned or Federal University. Primary issues which the JAMB was supposed to take care of were the rankerous quota system of admission, federal character, and respect for local environment among others. Along the line, the polytechnics and colleges of education were brought in. As is usual, Nigeria will always begin any system or process well. Our problem has always been how best to continue so as to end up doing well.
In between the JAMB conduction of matriculation examination for tertiary institutions, scandalous accusations and counter accusation of corruption, compromise, and outright manipulation of the entire system engulfed the process and became common topics for discussion among students. Soon universities felt that they were being undercut by JAMB and so initiated the post UME examination conducted by the universities themselves which became known as Post JAMB.
This is a situation where applicants or candidates were subjected to another or call it a second examination for a fee charged by the institutions. Of all the arguments for and against, the whole idea was that all the huge amount of money accruable to the universities arising out of entrance examination fees, but taken away by JAMB, would find its way back to the institution. Unfortunately, the candidates or is it their sponsors were being made to pay twice for the same examination by implication.
The universities claimed that the Mrs Chinwe Obaji then Minister for Education introduction would help them admit students they were sure of their academic standings. Yet more scandals of admission racketeering rented the air.
Arguments then came up as to the continued desirability of both or either of the JAMB’s UTME and the Post JAMB of the universities since for all intent and purposes there was an obvious duplication. Since the universities could not be told not to test the ability of the candidates they were to admit, JAMB became the weaker partner in an argument in which one party must lose. We then began to hear of the planned or proposed Federal Government decision to scrap JAMB.
Support for or opposition against JAMB is not for this write up because of the many views to be expressed by students, Lecturers, JAMB officials etc.
Our people believe that only a tree will stand to watch a man menacingly advancing towards it to hew it down. Any other living object or creative would seek to escape but JAMB stood still.
In the mind of every student, this April 27th UTMS would be the last for JAMB. However the federal Ministry of Education and even the presidency either self pedaled or denied out rightly that there was ever any plan to scrap JAMB, NECO etc.
Now, should JAMB go or should it be allowed to continue has remained a radio and Television debate. All these were happening on the eve of a JAMB moderated examination. What JAMB needed to do was to prove detractors wrong and run just this very examination very impeccably to the delight of JAMB apologists but no way.
My late father used to tell me that when a sick old man constantly faces the wall while backing his kinsmen in defiance to all their entreaties and plea for just one hello glance, then death is knocking at the door. JAMB continued to face the wall.
This time, they dealt fatal blows on students who applied for examination and without any previous communication, but with arrant display of tyranny, as if to say after all, this is our last chance, they compelled the students to pay the sum of N1,000 (one thousand naira) only for the purpose of thumb printing. Now the question is was this thumb printing not part of what they paid for upon enrolment for the examination? Why on the examination day right there in examination hall should the information be unveiled?
For a student whose parents or guardian gave the sum of N500 (five hundred naira) only for lunch and transport and now asked to pay N1000, what would he or she do? To be denied entry into the exam hall because of inability to pay, would that not discourage the candidate?
To hang outside the hall and watch others go in because they could afford to pay, would sure destabilize the student and even if he/she is later allowed to go in would be coming from traumatized mindset. What about the psychological impact of the humiliation. Can any one estimate the level of anxiety in the mind of a student who has been compelled to part with the money meant for his or her lunch and transport home? Many questions without answers.
JAMB may have seen the hand writing on the wall, and may have regarded the 27th April examination as their last chance, and so decided to make additional N1.6bn (one billion, six hundred million naira) only from the more than 1.6 million students who took the examination. If this is JAMB’s parting gift to the students. Then it is more of a cruel stab.
One dangerous thing in this country is that a lot of things happen without anybody raising an eye brow or asking question about the rationale.
My three children in three different centres said they all paid the N1000 and that is why I am concerned because that confirm it to be an orchestrated action not localized to any one particular centre.
JAMB is right to use the thumb printing machine to detect fake candidates or impersonators but to force candidates to pay, when they paid the initial examination fees, is my worry and more so where nobody was told of it until the last examination minute when they will capitalize on students anxiety.
May I recall a story we read in the 1960’s from the Oxford English primary reader. It was the story curled from the Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. I remember a passage that quotes Shylock, a Jew, lived in Venice. He was a money lender of the worst kind. He used to wait until a merchant was in trouble and then would need his money badly i.e. money borrowed from him on interest. I remember that the Shylock asked for a pound of flesh.” That was the role JAMB played on April 27th just because they feel they are going. This same JAMB knows the capacity for admission among the tertiary institutions and deliberately collected money and registered more than one million, six hundred thousand candidates who each paid nothing less than N4000 (four thousand naira) as exam fees, giving a yield of more than six billion, eight hundred million naira. They knew that not more than four hundred thousand (400,000) of the candidates would get admitted by the institution ultimately.
In the final analysis, when an institution of government, set up and funded with the people’s money with a view to solving problems for the government, in itself, begin to create more thorny and scandalous problems for the same government, it should go. This is how I see JAMB.
