One of the most visible scars of military dictatorship on the current socio-educational system in Nigeria is the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB). At a time when the military wanted full control of everything, including tertiary education, they opted for the unified exam body, which is not only outdated in today’s world but no longer fit for purpose.
Established through the instrumentality of a decree in 1978, JAMB is the body responsible for the annual Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) that over a million candidates take to gain admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria. In recent years, several inefficiencies and shortcomings have put JAMB in the spotlight, and a sane mind wonders why the exam body is still in place in 2023 when the world has long moved on.
It is rather perplexing that despite the fact that the era of central military control of everything ended over two decades ago, JAMB is yet to be discarded. The business of banking, telecommunications, aviation, power, etc. has since been completely deregulated, and the impacts are visible for everyone to see. But there is a curious ambivalence in the education sector with the malicious policy of JAMB still retained.
To begin with, JAMB is a product of illegality. Even the military-imposed constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria makes the continued existence of JAMB anachronistic and illegal. Many Nigerians do not know that education is under a concurrent legislative list in the 1999 constitution, meaning that it is not within the purview of the federal government. Section 29 and 30 of part II of the second schedule of the concurrent legislative list in Nigeria states that ‘a house of Assembly shall have the power to make laws for the state with respect to the establishment of an institution for purposes of the university, technology or professional education’. Since education is not supposed to be unilaterally federally controlled, why then is JAMB still in place in the country?
The baffling of the continued existence of JAMB is compounded by the fact that the JAMB experiment has been nothing but an unmitigated failure. The story of JAMB is the story of running crises, re-enacted year after year. It is a classical case study of what psychologists refer to as mad people doing the same thing consistently and expecting different results. Indeed, there are many of these classical cases of this insanity in Nigeria. An institution like the NYSC easily comes to mind.
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The truth remains that, beyond the foundational issues, one of the main reasons why JAMB has to be scrapped is its inefficiency and unreliability. It is not a secret that year after year, a significant number of students who pass JAMB do not gain admission into tertiary institutions. The high failure rate in JAMB examinations also points to a possible flaw in the testing system, which evidently does not adequately measure students’ capabilities or readiness for tertiary education. Also, JAMB has used and has continued to use Nigerian students as guinea pigs to test all sorts of weird educational assessment and evaluation schemes. They have experimented with the UME; MPCEME; UTME; POST-UTME; PPT; DBT etc on Nigerian students and under the cover of innovation, they have continued to cluelessly roll out initiatives that do not in any way improve the standard of education in Nigeria.
To make matters worse, over 40 years, since JAMB was established, it is yet to learn how to conduct flawless exams. Till date, examination processes are still severely plagued by widespread corruption and malpractices. Over the years, there have been several reported cases of exam malpractice, including the use of ‘mercenaries’ to write exams on behalf of candidates, leakage of question papers, and outright bribery of exam officials. These malpractices in no small measure undermine the credibility and integrity of JAMB results, hence it is clearly not a reliable measure of students’ abilities.
Again, research has proven that the cost of seeking admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria is at least 2000% higher than that of other African countries, including West African neighbours, Ghana. To secure admissions in Nigeria today, students will have to spend money on JAMB forms, standard scratch cards, universal scratch cards, etc. In most cases, they will have to spend money on transport and accommodation to sit for UTME. At least 200 young people die each year in the course of travelling for UTME. Sadly, despite the high cost, admission is not guaranteed for at least 70% of the candidates.
Again, one of the most potent reasons that explain why JAMB is a wicked policy for Nigeria is that it promotes capital flight and a negative balance of trade in the international education market with other countries. It is not news that universities from USA, Canada, the UK, China, South Africa, Ghana, Ukraine, etc with the support of their embassies regularly stage recruitment drives for Nigerian students with advertisements, education fairs, promotional seminars, and other specialised events. No state-owned university in Nigeria has gone outside the country on similar drives for the simple reason that the JAMB decree prohibits them from doing so. The painful result is that Nigerians now spend trillions of Naira yearly on payment of school fees to get admitted into foreign universities. Why then is a bottleneck like JAMB still allowed to operate despite these inadequacies?
The reasons why JAMB has not been scrapped can be attributed to power and corruption. Ordinarily, the policy initiative to scrap JAMB should ordinarily be championed by an Education Minister who is patriotic. But the truth remains that the powers enjoyed by Education Ministers under the JAMB prove too enticing. Section 6 of the JAMB decree stipulates that ‘the minister may give the Board directives of a general character or relate generally to particular matters with regard to the exercise by the Board of its actions under this Act and it shall be the duty of the board to comply with such directives’. The result is policy flip-flips and inconsistencies as each new Minister issues his or her own directives, sometimes selfish ones, to which JAMB must comply.
Again, critical stakeholders who ordinarily should champion the scraping of JAMB refuse to do so because of the benefits inherent in the power of demarcating the country into Educational Less Developed States (ELDS) and Educational More Developed States (EMDS). JAMB admissions are allocated based on 45% merit, 35% catchment area/locality, and 20% ELDS. In other words, candidates from ELDS states have a 20% better chance (they get a bonus mark of 20 points for being disadvantaged!) of getting admitted than candidates from EMDS even when they live in the same state and take the exam at the same centre. Nigeria cannot make any meaningful progress under these archaic conditions.
Also, many of the powerful people in Nigeria who ought to champion the push for resolution of the JAMB anomaly are beneficiaries of the system. They relish the preferential treatment accorded to their children (who manage to school in Nigeria) who make special lists circulated to Vice-chancellors, Provosts, and Rectors on special letterheads: President’s list, Vice President’s list, Governor’s list, Deputy Governor’s list, Senate President’s list, Speaker’s list, Minister’s list, Commissioner’s list, Senators list, Special Advisers list, etc.
JAMB is also being wickedly sustained by the power of money. Many Nigerians do not know that JAMB is a monopolistic business conglomerate for whom the entire business of admissions into Nigeria’s tertiary institutions was cornered with a decree. Year in, year out, JAMB rakes tens of billions of Naira through the sale of admission forms to anybody who cares to buy them. Asides this, the board also earns heavily through the sale of scratch cards, fees for checking results, fees for change of admission letters, fees for change of course letters, fees for late admission letters, etc. It is nothing but a money spinner!
The truth is that scrapping JAMB will not in any way mark the end of standardised testing in Nigeria. However, it calls for a reimagining of the process. One possible alternative that the education ministry can easily employ is to strengthen the secondary school leaving examinations, such as the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE). This examination already tests students on a broad range of subjects and could be made more rigorous to serve as a reliable measure of students’ readiness for tertiary education.
Another alternative is to decentralise the admission process and allow universities to conduct their entrance examinations. This would enable institutions to test for specific skills and knowledge relevant to their programs and reduce the emphasis on rote learning that characterises JAMB.
Granting tertiary institutions in Nigeria full autonomy to conduct their own admission examinations in line with global best practices will be a game changer for the Nigerian educational sector.
In conclusion, the need to scrap JAMB is a call for a more efficient, reliable, and equitable system of evaluating students’ readiness for tertiary education in Nigeria. While JAMB has served a purpose in the past, it is clear that it is no longer fit for the current educational needs of Nigeria. As such, it is imperative to reconsider its relevance and explore alternative systems that would unlock the Nigerian educational sector, which is currently held in very outdated cages of stunted growth.
