UTME 2017’s many hiccups
The week-long 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) which began in 642 centres nationwide on Saturday May 13, 2017 ended last Saturday, May 20. Although the examination is over, many candidates are yet to recover from the frustration, exhaustion and stress that they suffered at some of the Computer Based Test (CBT) centers.
Media reports indicated that some CBT centers used were grossly ill-equipped, thus creating difficulties for candidates, their parents and even the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB). At the Victory Institute of Theology and Education, Yangoji in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), UTME did not hold due to the faulty generator. On day-2 of the examination, frustrated candidates at this centre protested by blocking the Abuja-Lokoja highway for some hours as those who were due to write UTME at 7am were abandoned for several hours.
At about 4pm, the pandemonium on the highway compelled JAMB to transport the fatigued candidates to other CBT centers at Gwagwalada and Anagada in the FCT. One of the candidates from the Yangoji centre told reporters that although she arrived at the examination venue at 6.30am for the UTME that was scheduled for 7am, she wrote the exam at the Christ the King’s College in Gwagwalada at midnight. Proprietor of the Yangoji CBT center said a new generator was on the way when the candidates were protesting, a most untenable excuse.
Also on day-2 of the examination, candidates at the Blue Ocean Technology at Dutsen Baupma in Bwari Area Council said they waited for more than 10 hours before they could write the exam due to poor internet connection and glitches from computer machines. Reacting to these hitches, JAMB spokesperson Fabian Benjamin sympathised with the candidates and regretted the circumstances under which they wrote the UTME.
Optimal performance should naturally not be expected from a candidate who wrote UTME after experiencing several hours of frustration and exhaustion. The mental state of a candidate who was supposed to write UTME at 7am but wrote it at midnight, 15 hours later, is better imagined. The result of this examination cannot be a true test of the candidates’ abilities. The anxiety suffered by parents of candidates whose examination venues were changed owing to technical challenges at some CBT centers is another murky side of the 2017 UTME. A candidate from the botched Yangoji venue said she had to follow a friend who lived in Gwagwalada to pass the night in their house as it was late for her to return home. Since they were told not to come to examination venues with their phones, she could not inform her parents of the impromptu change in their CBT center.
Aside the incapacity demonstrated by some sub-standard CBT centers, others also engaged in fraudulent practices to short-change the accreditation process put in place by JAMB. JAMB’s Registrar/Chief Executive Officer Prof Is-haq Oloyede said during his visit to JKK CBT centre in Lagos for on-thespot assessment that about 70 percent of private CBT centres engaged in fraud. Such malpractices were often done in collaboration with JAMB officials.
With the partial introduction of the CBT mode of UTME in 2013 and its full implementation in 2015 when the Paper and Pencil Test (PPT) mode ceased, it is worrisome that the same set of challenges that confronted JAMB in the use of CBT centres are still prevalent. These challenges over many years suggest connivance between proprietors of CBT centers and insiders at JAMB who would have equally been irritated by the reorganisations introduced by Prof Oloyede’s leadership.
While no sanction can compensate for candidates’ frustrations and poor performance occasioned by failed CBT centers, we urge JAMB to investigate poorly equipped CBTcenters and delist those found wanting. To save JAMB and innocent candidates from the sharp practices of some fraudulent JAMB officials who conspire with owners of CBT centers, we advise Oloyede to institute probe committees and if necessary, invite anti-graft agencies to sanitize the system.