• Board Registrar, Oloyede, insists no candidate failed
By Gabriel Dike and Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The high failure rate recorded in the just released results of the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) is currently generating concern among stakeholders.
The pass rate of 28 percent in the UTME has not gone down well with parents and some stakeholders, who are wondering what happened.
But the management of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) declared that no candidate failed the 2024 UTME as being speculated.
While releasing the results of the 2024 UTME, the Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede announced that 76 percent of candidates scored below 200 marks.
Oloyede said that 1,989,668 candidates registered for the examinations held in 118 towns in 774 Computer Based Test Centres (CBT).
He further said that 439,974 candidates representing 24 percent scored 200 and above, and 1,402,490 representing 76 percent scored below 200.
Reacting to the 76 percent failure rate in the 2024 UTME, the National Parent Teacher Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN) described the result as unfortunate and said it is a clarion call for parents and schools to seat up.
The Deputy National President of NAPTAN, Chief Adeola Ogunbanjo told Daily Sun that parents must supervise their children on the use of social media, which is a major distraction to students.
Said he: “I must say it is a clarion call for parents to now start supervising their children on the negative influence of social media. We also need to know when to tell these children to put aside the social media for now and read their books. They don’t again. “Unfortunately, some of the parents encourage them to cheat during exams. This result is part of the failure of parents on adequate supervision of our children.
The UTME result is now a wake up call for us to be challenged to start monitoring and supervising our children, particularly on the use of phones and social media. That is what is dividing their attention.”
According to him, some parents don’t pay attention to what their children are doing and with the UTME result, parents should wake up to their responsibilities.
He said JAMB has done well to check exam malpractice with the setting of different questions for the UTME, adding, that the Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede has done well to checkmate the fraud as candidates can’t get the question ahead of the exam.
Chief Ogunbanjo advised schools to stop spoon feeding the students but teach them not to rely on ‘expo’, stating, some schools do it and we know it.”
The NAPTAN deputy president tasked Prof. Oloyede to investigate the complaints by some candidates that CBT centres were ill-prepared for the UTME, particularly on power supply.
He urged JAMB to only approve CBT centres with a generating set that have the capacity to power their system for the duration of the matriculation exam.
“Each time JAMB wants to approve CBT centres, they ensure that they have a generating set that can carry all their systems. A centre that does not have the capacity to power the place, should not be approved,” Ogunbanjo noted.
In his contributions to the failure rate in the 2024 UTME, President of the Association for Educational Development (AFED), Mr. Emmanuel Oji, said it is disheartening and sad to continue with this kind of experience in Nigeria.
He added: “My pain is particularly the rate at which this incident is nose diving, year in year out. A 76% failure rate is alarming and portends a challenging admission process for prospective students.
“It may lead to increased competition for limited university slots, disappointment and frustration among candidates, potential waste of resources invested in preparation and exam fees and increase in human system manipulation which may include, bribery, nepotism etc”
Oji stated that the blame cannot be solely attributed to one party, arguing that candidates, parents, and JAMB share some responsibility.
On candidates, he said poor preparation, lack of dedication, children in many clime are fast attatching themselves to their believe that school is a scam and therefore show low level commitment to studying and inadequate understanding of exam format and content.
According to him, parents overemphasis on grades rather than holistic learning, inadequate support, and pressure on children, noting, “it is even so bad that parents go as far as helping children to arrange for their exam success boat therefore limiting students commitment to hard work.”
On JAMB, the AFED boss said inadequate testing methods, insufficient resources, and potential technical issues such as seen in some centers where the systems malfunctioned.”
Oji suggested that to avert future failure rates, there must be improved access to quality education and resources, encourage holistic learning and critical thinking, enhance teacher training and support, regularly review and refine the exam format and content and provide adequate resources and support for candidates, including mock exams and feedback.
Adeola Soetan, Coordinator, Citizenship Civic Awareness Centre, disagreed with the UTME results and stressed that the massive failure in the UTME (over 70%) is an indication that something was wrong with the system.
He said: “With 76 per cent failure rate in JAMB and 84.36 per cent success rate in WAEC by candidates, definitely there’s a disconnect between the secondary school curriculum and JAMB syllabus /questions.
“To this end, it’s important that managers of our education system look into this obvious disharmony. Its either the standard of education continues to drop while the quality of JAMB syllabus and questions continue to rise, or there is a lot of examination malpractices at the secondary school levels.
“I can’t understand why 84.36 per cent of students will have at least five credits including English and Mathematics, and only 28 per cent of them can “pass” UTME with 200 marks and above.
“Assuming roughly that successful WAEC candidates were the major (or only) candidates that sat for UTME. It makes the matter worse when we consider that many candidates who sat for UTME this year, like past years, were experienced ‘UTME customers’ who had gone through years of post secondary tutorial experience.
“We need to critically look into curriculum design and harmonization right from JSS 1 to SSS 3 so as to prepare our children/candidates well for the ‘almighty UTME’. If JAMB will be proscribed to allow each university test its candidates since they are now conducting post-UTME examination and screening, so be it.
In the same vein, a parent, Kosarachi Eke, said she was uncomfortable with 2024 UTME results as recently released by JAMB, insisting that it doesn’t reflect the true academic and intellectual test of the candidate.
She said: “With what happened last year with Mmesomma saga, JAMB earned my respect after it proved that its systems could not be manipulated for any reason. But the 2024 UTME was a massive failure, and there’s need for JAMB to answer some questions.
“I am happy that they didn’t rush to announce the highest score for this year. This, I believe, will give them some time to clean and scrutinize the system, to ensure the right candidate is announced. But I have a deep fear with the silence on the matter.
“This silence might open big window and opportunity for speculations. Scammers would be used the opportunity to swindle and manipulate the results of some candidates, thus giving them the impression that they had the highest score even when they are not.
“Many of these candidates are naive and ignorant on these things, and in some many cases, their parents are also guilty. Many of these candidates have fallen victims of scammers in these few days the UTME results were released.”
In his response, JAMB spokesperson, Dr. Fabian Benjamin said nobody failed the 2024 UTME as being insinuated.
«It’s a selection examination like recruitment as such no fail pass. It all depends on the subscription and availability,” he stated.