Addressing the massive failure in JAMB-Hauwa Ibrahim

By Hauwa Ibrahim

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) was established by an Act of 1978, subsequently amended in 1989 and 1993.

14 per cent pass and 86 per cent failure at the just-concluded 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, divergent views have been expressed by stakeholders as to what led to the poor performance by the candidates.

While some said it was a reflection of the state of education in the country, some blamed a number of factors for the situation.

According to the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) as reported on May 24th 2021, JAMB registered about 1,223,962 JAMB UTME candidates and about 63,586 JAMB Direct Entry candidates for the 2021 JAMB exam as stated by the then Register Prof. Ishaq Olanrewaju Oloyede.

The board having set Literature-in-English questions from the 2021-2025 curriculum in the last year examination, reversed to the old curriculum that began in 2016 and expired in the year 2020.

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A reasonable literature teacher must have been preparing his students using the new syllabus. Many students had been reading the nine texts and 12 poems apart from the normal literary appreciation so hard that they were put into shame and were confused by the official examination questions that was set for them.

By implication, those that aspire to study courses with literature in English requirements in the University will spend another year or will be forced to study courses outside their choice which is the concern of all students affected.

Many of the students came out of their exams looking so forlorn and weak because they were not in any way expecting what JAMB gave them to write.

Students were insulting their teachers for not giving them the correct novels to read for their examinations, they hope to study literature related courses were dashed and this has served as a discouraging factor to some of the students who feel they cannot write the exams again.

In our family, my younger sisters’ dreams of becoming computer scientists and a newscaster had been shattered due to the situation.

I, therefore, consider it necessary to share some tips to pass JAMB as follows:

1 Create a time chart of your current activities

2. Develop a schedule and reading timetable

3. Stick to your study plan.

4: Go through at least ten recent years of past questions to get patterns.

5: Use exam focus textbooks to study according to the syllabus

6: Solve at least twenty years of past questions yourself at least twice.

7: Practice at least one timed test daily two weeks to the exam

8: Mentally write the exam before the main exam.

Students are advised to use this step while preparing for JAMB, with this more success will be recorded. However, I wish to call on the examination body – JAMB – to be lenient when setting future questions.

Ibrahim is an intern at PR Nigeria writes from kano.