Post-UTME: Requiem for controversial examination, money spinner

Candidates at a typical computer-based test centre

One year after Registrar/Chief Executive Officer of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, predicted that the Post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (Post-UTME) would be done away with, the prediction came to pass last week. Expectedly, the development has come with an avalanche of reactions from stakeholders, whose positions have been as divergent as their personalities. While this rages, universities that are also mourning the loss of millions of naira they make from the exercise, just as they claim that academically deficient candidates would once again find their way into universities. On the hand, some stakeholders are applauding government’s decision to put an end to what they consider an aberration, writes ENO-ABASI SUNDAY.

What would make a candidate that is in possession of a breathtaking Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) result, issued by organisers of the test, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), goofed so badly in a routine session with admission officials in the course of seeking admission into a university remains a puzzle.

In one such situation, in a university in the South West, a pretty lady brandishing a “good-looking” Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) certificate, from an otherwise reputable institution, and an equally good UTME result from JAMB, left admission officers mouth agape, when she displayed immense ignorance as she was asked basic questions about her intended course of study in the university.

Dazed, the admission team changed gear and buffeted her with possible JAMB questions. Of course she still looked completely lost. Convinced that the equally good UTME result she wielded could never have been as a result of her genuine efforts, the school effectively turned down her admission request.