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By Abdulkadir Salaudeen
Until this is done, JAMB may wish to make ZERO the minimum cut-off score for admission into our tertiary institutions. The elementary truth is that 140 out 400 (35%) or 0 out 400 (0%) falls within the bracket of failure. We call it F9.
We move round in circle in Nigeria. The old issue has resurfaced again. I think we should move ahead. This is not only a distraction, it is a confirmation that education in Nigeria is not meant for development nor is it targeted towards achieving any tangible goal. In essence, it lacks vision. It is meant to boost the ego: “I am a graduate.” “All my children are graduates.” Some will even add; “I am a university graduate”. That is all.
The recent pegging of JAMB’s minimum cut-off score at 140 for admission into Nigerian universities stokes, again, the ember that is capable of eating up the relic of standard left in Nigerian educational system. This isn’t the first time JAMB sets a ridiculous threshold; it is a repeat of 2018/2019 admission exercise. It later adjusted it to 160 which makes a little sense. Save probably in Nigeria, 140 out of 400 (35% [F9]) is a failure by any standard.
Thanks that many Nigerians, in a show of patriotism, made sarcastic and uncharitable remarks on what they considered ridiculing the concept of examination. One will be compelled to ask; what is the essence of examination if one does not necessarily need to pass and can choose to fail and yet gain admission? What is even more ridiculous is that students will need not only to fail but to fail woefully—with minimum of 120 (30%)—to be admitted into our polytechnics to become future engineers and technologists.
As if that is not ridiculous enough, potential teachers who will be trained to train our children in both primary and secondary schools are only required to score a minimum of 100 (25%)—and previously 80 (20%)—to be admitted into our colleges of education. In other words, they need to manifest and epitomize failure and prove to be miserably unintelligent to be qualified for admission. This is damaging to the teaching profession and denigrating to teachers. As a teacher who takes pride in teaching, I am personally injured.
When the bar was first lowered to the lowest of the low in 2018/2019, those of us who were ‘privileged’ to teach these students with abysmally low JAMB scores went through hell. Teaching them to understand is very taxing—if not impossible. Their brains seemed not to be perceptive to learning. All efforts to revive some of these students proved abortive. Their brains, generally speaking, could not endure the process of—or ready for—rigorous learning which, in the ideal sense, is peculiar to higher institutions.
This shouldn’t be construed as an insult. Humans are by nature differently gifted. Some have potentials for advance scholarship and have passion for education, some do not. Those who do not are not in any way, in the general sense, inferior to those who do. Some are endowed with skills which, if discovered and well utilized, can put them ahead of their peers who are eggheads. But the society makes degree certificates fair seeming to us as if it is a crime not to be a graduate.
In my article titled “In Defense of Governor El-Rufai on How JAMB’s Cut-off Marks Encourage Laziness” I wrote: “University education is not basic. What is basic, if at all, is the ability to read and write. This probably informed pegging and ceiling basic education at JSS 3 which is the first nine years spent in school (counting from primary one). Why would somebody who could not pass a purported entry exam be admitted into school—especially high institution? Is this how to develop? This is hugging and kissing calamity. It is calamitous to give to people what they do not deserve. These kinds of students corrupt the system and, thereafter, destroy the nation.”
JAMB always tries to vindicate itself that it doesn’t fix cut-off marks for tertiary institutions. JAMB could be right but who fixes it? JAMB should have taken it upon itself to defend its decision if the low pegging makes any sense. Its explanation that it does not fix cut-off marks sounds, to me, like a deliberate acknowledgment of the fact that the minimum scores are indeed ridiculous.
The examination body explained that only 378,639 scored 200 and above out of the over 1.7 million candidates that sat for the examination. Are these not enough to be admitted into the existing higher institutions? Must every candidate that sat for the examination get admitted? Where are the structures to accommodate all these candidates if admitted? Perhaps this is the reason why National Assembly plans to consider about 63 bills for the creation of new higher institutions. Though it is laughable that we continue to create more universities when the existing ones are reduced to grazing ground for cattle due to their closure. This is as a result of government’s inability to make them work.
It is sad that we are living to witness a time in Nigeria where candidates that scored 100 in JAMB or a little above it partied in jubilation. During our days, as young as I am, one is not willing to let others know that they scored 180 in JAMB. It is a shame. Some who were very shy would rather claim JAMB did not release their results than reveal that they scored 180. When I wrote my first JAMB two decades ago, I could not secure an admission into the university with my 205 which was my JAMB worst score.
Rather than address failure from its root, we are encouraging it. I keep wondering, even if government fulfils all ASUU’s demands and the universities are staffed by top-notch academics with well equipped laboratories, how would these institutions admit students who merit admission? None of the organized onions in Nigeria seems to be interested in advocating for the revival of the carcasses called public primary and secondary schools.
This lowering of JAMB cut-off marks to a ridiculous threshold does not, and cannot, solve the problem of failure. What can solve it is a declaration of state of emergency in the education sector in Nigeria. The sector should be revived; it is dead. It should be massively funded and the funds should be honestly monitored and put to use only for the purpose of revival. Until this is done, JAMB may wish to make ZERO the minimum cut-off score for admission into our tertiary institutions. The elementary truth is that 140 out 400 (35%) or 0 out 400 (0%) falls within the bracket of failure. We call it F9. May we get it right.
Abdulkadir Salaudeen
salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com
@salahuddeenAbd
