Cancellation of post-UTME will harm education, ASUU warns FG

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) says the federal government’s decision to scrap the post unified tertiary matriculation examination (UTME) portends danger to the quality of education in the country.

Addressing a press conference on Monday, Biodun Ogunyemi, national president of ASUU, said it was unfortunate because the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) cannot be solely responsible for conducting examinations into the country’s higher institutions.

Justifying the post-UTME, he cited discrepancies in JAMB scores of candidates and their performances in the first year.

Ogunyemi called on the federal government to rescind its decision and convene a genuine stakeholders’ meeting on the issue before making any policy statement.

“The cancellation of post-UTME, to us, portends serious danger for the quality of education in this country. The argument of federal government on the policy is unacceptable and potentially harmful to the future of Nigerian’s education system,” he said.

“Such statement coming from the minister was unfortunate because JAMB should not be saddled with the responsibility of solely conducting entrance examinations into the nation’s tertiary institutions.

“We call the attention of the honourable minister of education to the fact that post-UTME is a child of necessity and rationality, and a decision that Nigerian universities had to take when the credibility and integrity of JAMB examinations and results became questionable.

“When universities were admitting solely on the basis of JAMB scores unimaginable discrepancies were observed in the JAMB scores of candidates and their performance in the first year in the university.

“Consider a candidate who got a JAMB score of 290 out of a maximum of 400, yet had to withdraw from the University at the end of the first year on account of very poor performance. It is important to note that this happened not in isolated cases. Virtually all universities reported such cases.

“The University of Ibadan conducted a study on the correlation between JAMB scores and performance at the University, and reported a negative correlation between the two. The results were published in the Ibadan Journal of the Social Sciences. The introduction of Post-UTME was based on sound empirical evidence”.

He added that though the post-UTME had its own problems, these could be addressed.