North-east: Stakeholders call for review of admission process in tertiary institutions

North-east: Stakeholders call for review of admission process in tertiary institutions

Some stakeholders in the North-east have called for a review of the Post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (Post-UTME) conducted by some tertiary institutions as part of their admission requirements.

They made their views known in a survey conducted by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Yola, Maiduguri and Damaturu on Friday.

Some of the parents, students and education stakeholders in Yola described the exercise as “burdensome, exploitative, and risky for prospective candidates.”

Mr Jude Godwin, a parent, said the Post-UTME was introduced as a second-level assessment due to the declining standard of secondary education and the inability of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) to properly screen candidates as it were.

“The basis for the Post-UTME was to help institutions select quality candidates. But in reality, it has become a window for schools to expand their revenue.

“Institutions charge between N10,000 and N20,000 per candidate, attracting tens of thousands of applicants even when they already know the limited number they intend to admit.

“This is extortion because many students are subjected to stress, trauma, and financial loss, only for a fraction to gain admission,” Godwin said.

He added that travelling long distances to sit for the examination exposed students to risks such as road accidents, kidnapping, and other security threats.

Godwin, however, recommended that Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) should be improved and standardised as a credible gateway into tertiary institutions.

“If Post-UTME must be conducted, it should be strictly online for only those who applied to the institution.

“Government should also regulate charges to make them affordable, and Institutions should refund candidates who pay but are not admitted, to show the purpose is not revenue generation,” he added.

Miss Helnaya Dunama, a student of University of Jos, who resides in Adamawa, decried the cost of the exercise, noting that apart from the examination fees, parents bear additional transportation, feeding and accommodation expenses.

Dunama urged the federal government to streamline the admission process in order to reduce hardship on candidates.

Alhaji Ahmed Dada, an educationist and retired Permanent Secretary in Adamawa, said the Post-UTME gives universities the opportunity to filter candidates appropriately into courses suited for them.

Dada, who is also the Executive Director of Dadah Foundation for Educational Empowerment (DAFEE), said though the “system had lapses, it was introduced with good intentions.

“On Post-UTME examination, truly the universities have good intention because they are able to ensure only qualified persons are admitted to relevant courses, which helps to maintain merit and standard.

“There are instances where students are admitted having passed JAMB with a high score, when actually they cannot even pass primary school examinations.

“I believe the Post-UTME should continue so that those placed are the proper and qualified students for the proper courses,” Dada said.

He cautioned institutions against imposing high charges, suggesting that the process should be free or at minimal cost.

However, Prof. Abdullahi Adamu, the
Admission officer, Modibbo Adama University (MAU) Yola, said Post-UTME was a policy set up to screen applicants who chose to study in a particular institution.

“The examination comes after scoring the cut-off marks as an instrument to test applicants to be sure that their performance meets the schools requirement,” he said.

For Dr Idi Mohammed, Director, Information Communication Technology (ICT), Yobe State University (YSU), Damaturu, Post-UTME had been suspended since 2013.

Mohammed said the test was suspended at the heat of Boko Haram insurgency in 2013 due to security reasons.

According to him, candidates are now only required to upload their credentials on the university’s website, and those without deficiencies are usually admitted after paying a processing fee of N2,000.

“The system is built in such a way that only an applicant who scores the required cut-off marks for his course of choice can be able to apply. Once your marks are short of that, you can’t access the site.

“With this, non-qualified candidates will not waste their money for registration since they fall short of the required marks.

“This is all what is expected of a candidate; no physical presence is required at this point,” he said.

The director emphasised that the institution strictly followed the JAMB’s guidelines while issuing admission, especially the cut-off marks for each course.

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A parent, Sa’adatu Maina, commended the institution for suspending the test, which, she said, was placing financial burden on parents.

She said that the essence of having JAMB as a body was to standardise admission into universities, advising all institutions to stick to admission guidelines issued by the board.

“Creating another test after the UTME is just an unnecessary duplication which causes hardship on parents and even the students,” Maina said.

A 100-level Accounting student of YSU, Jamil Maimadu, also said there was no need for candidates to sit for two examinations to gain admission.

“JAMB examination is enough. Once you pass it, I think the university should just offer you admission because you merit it,” he said.

A retired civil servant, Malam Buba Lawan, however, called for a review and reintroduction of Post-UTME in the university.

“From what I have learned, the need to ensure competence was one of the reasons why the test was initially introduced.

“The only thing I am advocating is that the test should be reintroduced, but conducted online to save the cost of transportation with its attendant risk,” he said.

Lawan, who retired as Director, Information, at the state Ministry of Home Affairs, Information and Culture in 2019, said that Post-UTME would also help universities to generate more revenue to carry out development projects.

He said that universities could use the test to determine who to offer admission to in a situation whereby many qualified candidates applied for the same course.

“Courses such as Medicine and Pharmacy are in high demand.

“In the event that many qualified people have applied and you don’t have enough space to admit them, you can simply admit those that scored the highest marks,” Garba said.

The management of the University of Maiduguri, whose institution had suspended Post-UTME for long, and that of Al Ansar University in Maiduguri, a private university have declined comment on the subject matter.

However, a significant number of the people who spoke to NAN in Maiduguri also believed that Post-UTME had caused a lot of stress and hardship for students.

“If every university is going to have its own exam, then why do we even have JAMB?” Usman Abubakar, who runs the Orphanage care foundation asked.

He believes it was unfair when a student passes JAMB but fails the Post-UTME aptitude text, and was then denied admission.

Mr Ahmad muktar, Founder and National Coordinator, Catch Them Young Global Initiatives, insisted that “students have to take the risk to get what they want.”

“We are just repeating the same process and subjecting candidates to multiple suffering,” Halima Shehu, a mother of five also said.

“If every university will be conducting Post-UTME, I think JAMB should scrap and allowed university to decide their admission pattern” Abdulhamid Muhammad, a lecturer at Nigeria Teachers Institute said.