Comrade Bankole Olufisayo, the Governor of Tutorial School Operators, Ondo State has cried out against the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) profit making quest as against seeking ways to prepare students for its examination.
Olufisayo made this declaration in Ondo State following the mass failure that trialed the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), across the nation which he said JAMB is to be blamed for the ugly development.
He retreated that the registration process employed by JAMB in the just concluded UTME was one of the factors that affected the students’ performance. Olufisayo, who spoke in honour of students who excelled in academic excellence across the state emphasized that JAMB should be concerned more on how students prepare for UTME instead of focusing on profit making only.
“Lots of issues are responsible for it. Some are on the part of the students and their parents and the major ones are caused by JAMB. As at present now, education is falling in Nigeria and if the government does not wage into it, disaster looms.
“The process of registering for JAMB this year is too rigorous. A student will try to create a profile. How do you create a profile? You send your name to 55019. Many of these students have sent it more than 100 times without getting it. Later they will refer them to service providers, and from there refer them again to link their sim with NIN. At the NIN centres, many of these students spend days, week sleeping at the centres just because they want to register for JAMB.
“JAMB started selling forms around February this year and you are expecting the examination to come up in two months. After the students had wasted lots of time at the NIN centres, they will come back again to JAMB to register. They will start looking for means to create profile after spending days at MTN office.
“With all these cumbersome processes, when will the students be able to prepare for the exam. This is what JAMB has failed to look at. JAMB should not concentrate so much on getting money from these students or getting students to register for exams. They should also be concerned about the preparation of the students for the exam.
“When these students come to tutorials in the morning they will leave as early as 10 am because of this issue. To them, what is the essence of coming to tutorials without registering for the exam? And in registering for the exam, there is no preparation.
While also attributing lack of seriousness on the part of the students, Olafisoye maintained that some of students now engaged in disturbing social violence such as cyber crime and drugs
He also appealed to the government to endeavour to reward excellence among students in order to motivate them in their academics.
“It is not bad if the best student in JAMB is rewarded this year. It is not bad if the best student in Ondo State is rewarded by the state governor. Our association is the only association in Nigeria where excellence is recognized and rewarded”, he said.
Olufisayo stressed that if JAMB is not checkmated, the standard of education will continue to retrogress in Nigeria.
