Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) admission exercise is like winter. It is a seasonal quest and event. Whenever it comes both parents and applicants are in a frenzy mood and become anxious and eager. Only a few can wait for it to be over because nobody is sure of anything. Everybody is prayerful: they run everywhere and do every thing to protect their own. They call, cringe and patronize the lecturers, provosts, Deans, and Vice Chancellors. They patronize dupes and quacks-what I call admission merchants who urge them to bring huge sums of money in order to short-circuit the legal and lawful admission system. At JAMB and during WAEC, some parents will purposely ensure that their children apply to special centres called “miracles centres”. At such centres, they have special invigilators who collect money ranging from 20,000 Naira to 100,000 Naira per candidate in order to ensure that they are given ready-made, hot and ready answers to the multiple questions. That is where the examination questions had not already leaked or even in spite of the leakage.
Annually, there are complaints about how JAMB computers are manipulated to favor special applicants or candidates, how the wrong students passed and the bright ones failed. This made NUC to insist on post-UME examinations for applicants. The first time that was introduced in some universities, many of such applicants with over-blotted JAMB scores failed the post-UME examinations. Today, the allegation is that some universities also manipulate the post-UME results to favor certain candidates. This is one allegation which was made against the out-going Vice Chancellor of the University of Benin. If this allegation is correct, then it is quite demeaning, unbecoming and a huge embarrassment on the university system.
For the first time, JAMB has done something quite commendable. Within three weeks of conducting the JAMB examination, the results are out. Let us hope that the speed with which the results were released also marks efficiency and integrity. Let us hope that there will be fewer complaints from the students and parents alike. Let us hope that the shortcomings of several decades will be minimized.
However, what happens from here? The JAMB and a few other groups were out the other day questioning the status of post-UME conducted by universities-whether it was legal, whether they were not undermining the powers of JAMB and the examination conducted by JAMB. My answer to this is neither here nor there-it is not as concise because there are many complex issues involved. This is because JAMB has not been above board in the past decade or so. This is reflected in the type of people who pass the JAMB and who were offered admission. The same can be said of WAEC candidates where parents also bribe and or look for ECOMOG forces (impostors) to seat examinations for their children. The problem goes right to the bottom.
In the beginning, there was no JAMB examination; admission was between candidates and the University of Interest to him or her. JAMB became a gatekeeper to moderate entry into universities, using merit, catchment area, educationally disadvantaged state and other parameters as a way of assisting and favoring some states and regions that had fewer students in the Universities. After implementing this principle for over thirty years, I feel that JAMB and its principles are outdated. We do not need JAMB any longer. Let universities conduct and admit their students.
I say this for the following reasons. First, JAMB has become a huge bureaucracy and a monster, gulping money and unable to check the problem of fraud during examination. They recruit invigilators and supervisors of shady background or character. In rural areas, many students are still unable to do JAMB because they are unable to access JAMB forms. Neither is JAMB able to reach many of them. Second, in the past 30 years or more, there has been little or no physical expansion in most federal universities. This means that although the size of the secondary school graduands is soaring, however, the space available in universities is static. Many of our universities are oversubscribed and we are unable to meet the UNESCO staff/student ratio.
By May 2007 there were 30, 806 academic staff servicing 800,000 students in Nigerian universities-this is certainly alarming and Nigerians need to urge government to seriously take up this challenge. In 1996, Professor Omo Omoruyi carried out a study which showed that there were over 15, 000 Nigerians teaching in American universities and colleges, and this was more than the total number of Lecturers in Nigerian universities. The other day, under the so-called education reform project, a Minister of Education tried to urge for the retrenchment of university staff, only to be shocked when the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) presented her with a data showing that universities were unable to meet half of their total staff requirement. That was how the idea died!
Third, there is virtually no state in Nigeria that has not established a university, including state governments. In my view such states have no need for the catchment or quota principle because they are not able to fill their subscription into other universities. One of such states is Katsina which is a catchment state to Ahmadu Bello University Kano, Usmanu Danfiodiyo University, Sokoto and Bayero University, Kano. It is also unclear how Lagos state can still be described as educationally disadvantaged when many students of Lagos origin do creditably well at JAMB, yet they are a catchments area of the University of Lagos and enjoy that status in admission. UNILAG is unable to admit all qualified Lagosians even on merit, not to talk of the catchments area principle. This makes the principle outdated and unhelpful.
Fourth, there is a proliferation of private universities. Today their total number is something in the neighbourhood of 56. This is more than the total of federal and state universities put together. There are also some 45 illegal universities. The National Universities Commission has been taking advertorial in newspapers calling attention to the existence of these universities, without taking pro-active role to prosecute their proprietors/proprietress. If NUC recognizes that what those proprietors are doing is wrong and illegal, it is NUC’s responsibility to move a step forward by prosecuting the perpetrators.
There is never a year, since the past two decades, that JAMB was able to provide admission to 25% of total successful applicants into Universities. This means that in the past ten years at least 6 million JAMB applicants were unable to find a space in the university. The figure of qualified but unadmitted JAMB applicants for 2002 was put at 850,000. I suspect that the figures will be over one million of unadmitted applicants this year.
Poly-JAMB applicants are less enthusiastic about polytechnic admission. Polytechnic is seen as second best. In addition, the applicants should not be blamed. This is because as a country, we have not placed polytechnic education on the proper pedestal as universities, neither have we been able to successfully bridge the divide and discrimination between university and polytechnic graduates. Many National Diploma (HND) graduates still go to University to do “Direct Entry” in order to acquire a university degree with a view to overcome their perceived future handicaps in the labor market. Many universities still discriminate offering them Direct Entry admission, claiming they should have done the Advanced Level (“A” Level) study.
Meanwhile, less than 10% of total university admission is devoted to Direct Entry, rendering the “A” level almost useless and unhelpful as admission requirement. Many Nigerians who wish to go and study in the United Kingdom, are forced to do “A” level courses abroad, else many of them do Foundational programs which do not qualify them to get admission into the elite universities in the UK such as Oxford, Cambridge, London School of Economics (LSE) and University of Manchester, to mention a few. I believe that there is need to revamp “A” Level examinations as a mature and post-WAEC entry point into universities.
While I have no problem with the proliferation of private universities, however, I believe that there is need for quality and control. NUC is currently issuing licenses to individuals and groups even if they have nothing to show for it. Many of such universities can never pass genuine accreditation. In giving “interim” or “partial” accreditation annually to such universities, NUC is inadvertently cheapening standards and legitimating mediocrity. Many of such universities are not making serious efforts to recruit lecturers or train lecturers. I understand that some of them are even hostile to staff who embark on Ph.D. programs on their own. They prefer them to remain in class and simply teach.
A friend once said to me that it is a matter of choice where parents decide to send their children; after all there are many unaccredited and quack universities abroad. Yes, this may be true, but the flip side of the matter is that it is too risky and dangerous for our students, our parents and our national development. If we leave the matter to quacks, quacks will dominate the Nigerian university system. Officially, NUC has identified 45 illegal universities. My sense is that the number is about double what is currently stated by the NUC. In a few years, they will issue illegal degrees to those students and such students will leave to Papua New Guinea and Singapore or else where, to undertake a Graduate programme or seek to work. When the number of illegal universities becomes overwhelming, every body will turn the other way, stating that it is a matter of choice for individuals and employees-we cannot build our society in this way. We must not take that attitude to the matter. Illegal universities will further destroy our already comatose and wrecked university system; we must fight it with the last blood in our arteries.
The other more important thing is that private university admission and education is not a substitute for government social responsibility to citizens in university provisioning. It does not mean that because private universities exist, admission into them is free. Admission into private universities is based on affordability as a prerequisite. More than 80% of students who are admitted into public universities are from lower middle class and indigent homes. More than 80% of those who are unable to get university admission are also fro the same classes. They cannot afford to pay the tuition in any of the private universities. They will continue to soar the class of unemployed youth, currently put at 40 million and roam the streets or wait for the next JAMB when fresh secondary school graduands will also join them to embark on the next race for university admission. Careful planning, sincerity and deep think will help us to manage and resolve this matter.
Yes, the season of JAMB admission is here again and will be over in the next three to four months, after that everybody will go to sleep waiting for yet another season. Nobody will remember that close to 80% of qualified applicants could not be offered admission into the universities the previous year. Every body will take an individualistic attitude of “let my child get admission, I wont bother about others”. In addition, no parent will ask what we should do collectively to address this problem. JAMB admission tells a lot about our focus and outlook on the concept of the public good and public interest.
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