The dust raised by the use of electronic testing in the Unified Tertiary and Matriculation Examination, UTME, is yet to settle few weeks after it was adopted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB.
Time and again, JAMB kept telling Nigerians that it introduced the computer based testing in UTME to check the growing rate of examination malpractices in the country. Nigerians have also been told by the authorities that the country “need to go the way of the world, because everybody is going technological and if Nigeria decides not to join, I’m sorry we will be left behind, so we should do CBT. It is the answer to exam malpractices.”
That is the explanation from JAMB registrar, Professor Dibu Ojerinde while delivering a lecture at the Institute of Education, University of Ibadan during the week.
“This year, we used 98 vehicles to carry question papers from Abuja to all parts of the country. Consider the danger, the risk, the life, enough is enough. The issue of carrying question papers to centres around the country is coming to an end. In three minutes, we could send our questions from Abuja to anywhere in the world. We’re going to do it in UK, Jedda and anywhere throughout the world. I’ve not seen any other examination body in Africa that has done what we have done in JAMB on CBT,” he said.
Whatever success being envisaged by JAMB was given a thorough assessment with the mass failure which attended the inaugural e-examination. While announcing the UTME results recently, JAMB lamented that candidates had changed their style of perpetrating examination malpractices from wearing ‘magic slippers,’ to wearing ‘long sleeve shirts that bore imprint of prepared answers.’ The result itself was a further proof that e-examination will take some more test run before it can be called a success.
From the report, only 10 candidates scored 300 and above; 628 scored between 270 and 299; 33, 115 scored between 250 and 269; while 704, 622 scored between 200 and 249.
About 571,298 scored between 170 and 199; 103, 489 scored between 160 and169 while 127,017 scored less than 159.
It is no secret that the electronic examination has seen internet fraudsters hijacking it and having a field day through the printing of fake e-electronic slips. It leaves us with a strong feeling that authorities at JAMB did not perfect the process before opting to go the electronic way. To arrest this menace, therefore, JAMB would need to urgently return to its drawing board and fashion out a workable error-free e-examination process or make a quick return to its old manual answer scripts to curb these clear cases of irregularities.
The examination body will also need to be more creative in dealing with the issue of examination malpractice. More than anything else, JAMB would need to embark on a comprehensive public awareness because many students appear to be computer illiterate, thus making them susceptible to cyber fraudsters.
