From all indications, the Federal Government is set to scrap the National Examinations Council (NECO) and rationalize the functions of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in a far-reaching restructuring of the nation’s examination bodies.
Under the plan widely reported in the media on April 3, JAMB will no longer conduct the entrance examination into the nation’s tertiary institutions, the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). Instead, all tertiary institutions will now conduct their own entrance examinations while JAMB will only serve as a clearing house and administrative centre for admission matters. Instead of both WAEC and NECO conducting Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations (SSSCE), WAEC will now conduct the examinations in November/December and January every year, in addition to the existing May/June examination.
These changes, which are expected to be made public by the Federal Government soon via a White Paper, are reportedly based on the recommendations of the Stephen Oronsaye-led Presidential Committee on the Rationalization and Restructuring of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies. A White Paper committee set up by the government to review the Oronsaye Report also reportedly approved the recommendation.
The Oronsanye Committee, which had a brief to streamline government agencies with a view to reducing the cost of governance had recommended the scrapping of 38 agencies, merger of 52 and reversal of 14 to departments of existing ministries. The plan to scrap NECO and limit the role of JAMB in tertiary institutions’ admission process is not surprising.
Arguments have been raging for some years now on the continuing relevance of JAMB and its UTME in the admission process since many of the nation’s tertiary institutions now conduct Post-UTME examinations because of the growing lack of credibility of scores awarded to candidates in the UTME examination. Many universities now base their admissions on a combination of results obtained in their internal Post-UTME examinations and JAMB’s UTME, thereby making the UTME of little relevance.
The decision to grant universities a measure of autonomy in their admission process is, therefore, welcome. It is in line with the demand of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and it will go a long way in helping to ensure that universities solely determine the quality of candidates that would be admitted into their programmes. What is surprising in the Federal Government position, however, is the decision to still retain JAMB as an agency when it will no longer be conducting examinations.
We do not think that whatever clearing has to be done for admission into universities and other tertiary institutions at the Federal Government level requires a large organisation such as JAMB. The department responsible for Higher Education in the Federal Ministry of Education should be able to do the job. Although arguments have been made in some quarters that the restriction of JAMB from entrance examinations into tertiary institutions will return the country to the era when candidates had multiple admissions to different universities, and there was no provision to ensure admission for candidates in the institutions’ “catchment” areas and those from “educationally disadvantaged states” under the contentious quota system, the loss of confidence in JAMB as a credible examination body is sufficient reason for it to be scrapped.
Strangely, the committee reportedly fell short of recommending the scrapping of JAMB. The rigmarole on the need for the continuing existence of the body is inexplicable at this time that the agency has obviously outlived its usefulness as an examination body. For NECO, we think the duplication of the functions of WAEC in this agency via a decree promulgated in the dying days of the Abudulsalam Abubakar regime in April 1999 was not well considered from the outset.
Although NECO was instituted partly because WAEC, at that time, was adjudged to have become overwhelmed by the number of examinations it was saddled with, there is really no need to have two agencies conducting parallel examinations. Except for the likelihood of job losses and the negative impact of its scrapping on holders of its certificates, the decision to do away with NECO is in order because it is redundant. Arguments have, however, been made in some quarters that NECO, as Nigeria’s sole examination body for the SSSCE since WAEC is a regional body, should have been spared.
The ability of WAEC to conduct SSSCE examinations in November/ December and also January, when the results of the November/December examinations would not have been released, has also been questioned. Certainly, WAEC will need to be strengthened to conduct the three SSSCE that it has now been saddled with effectively. All in all, the streamlining of these education agencies is welcome.COMMENTS!>>
No comments:
Post a Comment