see what Sheriff said on the PDP chairman post

Re: Requiem For JAMB And Resolving The Controversy Over JAMB

The concerns raised by Nigerians on the procedures adopted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in delivering her services are a welcome  development to education in Nigeria as inclusiveness is a major hallmark of the current administration in the Board.

 We have always solicited the interest, contributions and participation of the general public in all our programmes from registration to the conduct of our examination. This we believe will give the public the opportunity of hindsight in their contributions by way of criticism or support in ensuring that the mandate of the Board in the conduct of examination, selection and unifying the diverse components of the country is achieved.

One of the areas the public has always misinterpreted the Board’s functions is in the area of admissions. The general narrative is that the Board admits candidates for the tertiary institutions; this is far from the truth. As a regulatory agency, the Board basically ensures that abuses as regards admissions are checkmated; it creates the latitude for fairness and equity in the admission exercise. Our duty besides the conduct of examination is to maintain the spirit and letter of admissions as defined by individual institutions. We ask for institutions’ admission requirements and insist that they follow what they define as their requirement so that abuses are not manifested in denying qualified candidates the opportunity of being admitted based on flimsy reasons.

The current Registrar of the Board is a product of the university system who strongly believes that the sanctity of admission as enshrined in the Act establishing the various tiers of the tertiary institutions should be adhered strictly to. A one-time Vice Chancellor of a prominent university, a former chairman of the CVC who is himself at the fore front of the clamour for university autonomy cannot usurp the powers of admission from the institutions. 

The Board has had the privilege of having renowned scholars as its Registrars and they have at each juncture worked tirelessly to make a change as the prevailing circumstances present especially with the occurring cases of examination malpractices. This is the reason behind some of the relatively new processes  introduced in this year’s registration exercise, the profile creation, biometric capturing of ten fingers among others.

The challenge of multiple registration and admissions has been the major encumbrance to adequate utilization of available spaces in the tertiary institutions. The Board was established to among other things eliminate incidence of multiple admissions.  The call for the admission of students to as many universities as they desire is a call to deprive a reasonable number of qualified students  admissions.  

One of the tasks the Board has had to battle with is to ensure that no candidate takes a space that he doesn’t need which if allowed will deprive others from getting admission.

 

On assumption of duty, Prof Is-haq  Oloyede insisted on improving on what his predecessors had done. The first assignment he carried out was to look at all that had been in place with the view   to improving on them to make them more efficient and effective. To achieve an inclusive result, a stakeholders’ meeting was convened, including all former Registrars, Directors of the Board as well as other critical partners with over 90 professors in attendance. At this inclusive meeting, members commended the efforts by the Board in restoring confidence in the examination conducted by the Board but called for concerted efforts to make the entire system comply with the world’s best standards. The need for a process that will mitigate the rising incidence of examination malpractices was accorded a special focus and management was urged to address it to eliminate challenges of invalid results that may emanate therefrom. 

In view of all these observations and concerns by Nigerians, the new Registrar put machineries in motion   to consolidate on the achievements of his predecessors and not to reverse whatever they have done.

What are the reforms about? First, his predecessor had used scratch card to deploy most of the Board’s services to the public. Like every other system used over a period, the scratch card later manifested a lot of challenges associated with fraud leading to the Board losing hundreds of millions. The former Registrar was at the verge of jettisoning the card system before he left.  Indeed 12 members of staff were dismissed on the recommendation of the Dibu Ojerinde’s management on scratch cards/regularisation racketeering. The current Registrar has also handed a number of Senior Staff members to the law enforcement agencies on scratch card related infractions involving hundreds of millions. 

Promptly, Oloyede initiated the process that has ensured transparency and grantee quality service. The card system was then replaced with pin vending thereby saving government billions. The Board, under Prof Oloyede, has since developed appropriate internal capacity and is today deploying services without scratch cards. The millions being paid to service providers are now being saved for the Nation.

On the registration platform, we have also done a self-assessment and discovered that the difficulties candidates faced was basically due largely to insufficient compliance with published information on how to go about the registration. We are now more determined to make a difference than ever in the conduct of public examination. Whatever challenge noted in the registration process has been looked into and amendments made hence the smooth process as all candidates desirous of registration have all done so within the initial one month period.   Evidence at registration centres has shown that the two weeks extension was quite unnecessary.

We had done a study of registration in the last three years and discovered that the Board had all been registering candidates within a period of one month even when the grace period varies between five to six months. Yes, registration had always been announced for six months period but our data clearly revealed that candidates actually registered within one month. In last year’s exercise for instance, we noticed that at the fifth month we had not done 30% of the expected candidates for the year’s exercise and about 70% expected candidates for the year registered in the sixth month.  Our findings also revealed that the more time you give the more likelihood of more extension, the facts are there as we had to extend even last year. And don’t forget that the more time you give the more you are likely to have economic, social and mutilated data resulting from candidates who may want to compromise the system. Examination malpractice starts from registration and hence the seriousness with which the Board takes its registration process.

Having resolved to register for a month, we put in place a structure to ensure a seamless registration.  The Board opened over 65,000 distribution points of registration across the nation. This was done through over 650 accredited centres in the country. In each of our over 650 centres we gave 100 registration points to enable the centres register 100 candidates

simultaneously.  The Board also extended participation to all banks  to vend the pins including Interswitch, Remita and NIPOST. With Interswitch and Remita, you can buy at the comfort of your home. As at the last count, 10 banks are participating.

This again brings me to a very dangerous narrative by columnist and other commentators who for want of information   alleged that Jaiz bank was involved in the process because of religious affinity.  Let me state clearly that the Registrar of JAMB is one Nigerian who do not believe in anything other than hard work, equity and fairness and this is why a lot of us Christians are working closely with him including his security details and myself, a Tiv man from a very poor agrarian background in Benue State.  The platform for vending was opened for all interested banks and other qualified financial organs and over ten banks indicated interest and were approved including Jaiz bank as indicated above.  As you read this, Jaiz is not even the leading bank in the pin vending.  

This is clearly an improvement on the registration platform as only three banks were selling before with the attendant challenges in previous years. Today, three weeks into the initial four weeks period the Board has registered over 1.3m candidates out of about 1.5m expected. The implication is that but for the extension, the remaining one week would have been sufficient for all to register.

The process of profile creation and capturing of ten fingers is one of the best processes that are sure to curb a lot of unwholesome practices. This is intended to curb multiple registrations. We are mindful of the backlash but are prepared to do the needful. 
There is no policy somersault as all are only an improvement on existing processes. On awaiting result, we never banned awaiting result; it was only the imagination of those who refuse to understand the process and procedure for admissions. The tradition of the Board has always been all inclusive. There is virtually no policy or process being done in the Board that all the former Registrars and Directors are ignorant of.

The management of the Board will never take a decision that is intended for self-glorification and will not be intimidated into shying away from taking steps that will bring public examination out of the woods. As a responsive organisation, we will also admit openly if we are wrong and will make quick amendment.

Our focus is to conduct a fair examination that stakeholders will be proud of next month. The road may be a little tedious but our concern at the moment is our destination and the overall interest of the Nation, not that of a cabal of exploiters. We need the support of all right thinking Nigerians and we shall not disappoint the Nation.

Today, the Board is exporting technology to not only African countries but also European countries as many have come to under study what we are doing and have invited the Board to benchmark with them. Without mentioning names, I will proudly say that we have conducted examination for multi nationals and even some of the most celebrated examination bodies abroad to their satisfaction.

Let us not consistently condemn what we have but support and ensure that it works. It is fast becoming our character to always call for either the head of agencies or absolute abolishing of such agencies or policies once certain breaks in services are noted while celebrating foreign agencies that even patronise such condemn institutions of government.

The Board has consistently through all its Registrar strived to mitigate the growing agitation for irregularities associated with the desperation for tertiary education given its limited spaces. Public examination in Nigeria is a serious business that needs no distractions. Soon it will be ‘’HOSANNAH’’ for JAMB and not a requiem.

    
Fabian Benjamin,PhD 

Head, Public Relations 
JAMB.