Sometime last year, Miss Bisi Kolawole, a candidate who sat for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) on May 31, 2014, decried her experience in writing the Paper Pencil Test.
She once moaned: “I wrote the UTME since May 31 but up till now, I have not received my result.
“I appealed to JAMB (Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board) to address the problem
relating to the release of my exam result but it has yet to tackle the problem.”
Another candidate, Salihu Akamsoko, noted that “when the UTME results finally came out, they were not released early enough to
enable some candidates to secure university admissions.
“Such problems are often common with
those who wrote UTME using the Paper
Pencil Test (PPT) mode.
“However, I thank God that this time around,
I wrote the exam via the Computer Based
Test (CBT) mode, I have checked my JAMB
result and I am glad I scored 228 points.”
These comments, derived from Tweeter, a
social media network, tend to reflect some
of the challenges facing candidates who sit
for UTME examinations, particularly those
using the PPT mode.
It is, therefore, little wonder then that
observers applaud JAMB for its decision to
switch from Paper Pencil Test (PPT) to
Computer Based Test (CBT) in conducting
its examinations, as part efforts to address
perceptible drawbacks.
“The desire to go full-blown CBT in
administering public examinations in Nigeria
has been the resolve of the Federal
Government,” Mr Nyesome Wike, former
Minister of Education, said.
Wike said this at the inauguration of a CBT
centre of JAMB, which has the capacity to
accommodate 250 candidates per session,
in Kogo community, Bwari Area Council of
the FCT.
He called for the adoption of strategic
measures in the administration of public
examinations, so as to ensure hitch-free and
flawless entry processes into higher
institutions, among others.
“With the expansion of access through the
establishment of a federal university in each
state of the federation and the licensing of
more private universities, it is expected that
many more candidates, who sit for JAMB
examination every year, will gain admission
into various tertiary institutions.
“It is hoped that the new vista and
opportunity which the CBT has opened will
be seized by entrepreneurs as a new area of
investment.
“I urge other public examination bodies to
embrace the CBT mode in order to synergise
the administration of public examination in
Nigeria,” he added.
Educationalists view the introduction of the
CBT as a panacea to the myriad challenges
facing Nigeria’s education sector,
particularly those relating to the rising
number of candidates who sit for UTME in
order to gain admission into tertiary
institutions.
They believe that the government has
placed considerable emphasis on expanding
the quality and accessibility of tertiary
education in the country via enhanced
credibility of public examinations.
They note that the adoption of CBT in
conducting public examinations will go a
long way in boosting the education sector,
particularly in curbing result blackouts,
delays in release of exam results and other
factors that are impeding the growth of the
sector.
Dr Jeremiah Osolua, an educational
consultant, recalled that President Goodluck
Jonathan, at a meeting with educational
stakeholders in Amsterdam, the Netherlands,
endorsed the adoption of CBT, as part of his
administration’s efforts to revolutionise the
education sector.
He said that the experience of JAMB as to
CBT had been a source of pride to the
nation, adding that tangible efforts should be
made to fully integrate technology
applications in the curriculum of Nigerian
students to enable them to garner more
know-how about digital operations.
However, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, the Registrar
of JAMB, conceded that JAMB initially
encountered some hiccups in efforts to
adopt the CBT; its determination to
surmount the challenges enabled it to
convert the seeming challenges to veritable
opportunities.
He said that the CBT was introduced by
JAMB as a panacea to the perennial
challenges associated with the PPT, adding
that the new mode of examination had the
potential of curbing virtually all the
perceptible abnormalities.
“The CBT was introduced by JAMB in 2013
to bring sanity into the education sector and
curb the hydra-dreaded problem of
incomplete results, while solving the
lingering challenges of missing scripts,
incomplete results and other similar
complaints often expressed by candidates in
the past.
“The paperless test, which facilitates prompt
release of raw scores and greater
standardisation of test administration, is
reliable, flexible and simple to administer. It
also eliminates high cost of logistics and
hectic planning for the examination,” he
said.
Ojerinde said that 1,606,753 candidates
applied for the 2014 UTME, adding that out
of the figure, 990,179 candidates applied for
the PPT, 25, 325 candidates applied for the
Dual Based Test, while 616, 574 candidates
applied for the CBT.
Also speaking, Mr Peter Eze, the Chairman
of JAMB’s Governing Board, said that the
JAMB’s determination to fully adopt the CBT
in 2015 was not negotiable.
He pledged the agency’s determination to
introduce innovations aimed at ensuring the
proper implementation of the education
policy, in order to better the lot of UTME
candidates.
His words: “Our determination to embrace
this all-encompassing mode of examination
is to place Nigeria’s education system at
par with global best practices.
“CBT has the solution to all the challenges
facing public examination.”
Eze recalled that JAMB used 55 centres to
conduct the CBT in 2013, while it used 133
centres for DBT and 153 for CBT in 2014.
All in all, analysts observe that JAMB is
making a steady progress in using CBT in
enhancing the quality of its UTME and by
extension, the nation’s education system.
Written by Fortune Abang (staff of NAN)
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