Technical hitches force JAMB to shift exams
Technical hitches have forced the Joint Admission Matriculation Board Examinations (JAMB) to postpone this year’s examinations to March 9, Daily learnt.
Trust The Computer Based Test (CBT) was earlier scheduled to start nationwide yesterday but that was not possible because of problems ranging from collapse of internet servers, logistics, congestion at the exams centres, mixed up of candidates’ names, among others.
This year’s examination is CBT, unlike in previous years where candidates had alternatives of sitting for the pencil on paper (POP) exams, a development that drew criticisms from various stakeholders.
But the spokesperson of the Board, Mr Fabian Benjamin, who confirmed the shift to Daily Trust yesterday, also explained why candidates are confused about the date and time for the exam.
“The information is contained on the e-slips but unfortunately most of these candidates went back to the centres where they registered looking for the same information and because of that we have a lot of crowd around the centres,” Benjamin said.
But Daily Trust findings show that the board decided to ignore the concern raised about the viability of conducting only CBT examinations without providing alternatives of POP despite the apparent challenges facing the computer based test.
A memo signed by four professors, some of them former JAMB registrars dated January 2015 and addressed to Kano State Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, a copy obtained by our reporter, disclosed that the CBT exams is capable of disenfranchising many students who are from rural areas.
“The fall-out of the present decision by JAMB is extremely disturbing and both politically and socially discriminatory for over 70 percent of potential candidates,” the memo which was also sent to President Goodluck Jonathan and Minister of Education Malam Ibrahim Shekarau said.
The stakeholders added but in the former mode, candidates can register anywhere and may invariably be sent to a center in, or near their village.
They argued even when the pilot CBT centers was introduced in the last two years, “almost all candidates who chose the CBT, have, on the average scored far higher than their pencil and paper counterparts, JAMB had inadvertently introduced academic discrimination into the system.”
They said that the board’s claim of releasing result immediately after the exams is against the law, because “by law, JAMB conducts a ‘selection exam’ which means that candidates are ranged as per given cut-off points (which are fixed from year to year depending on the range of scores across the board), and selection carried out accordingly.”