Freekick

Entrance into the universities these days proves to be very difficult and expensive for some people. When times were good, gaining admission into the university depended on how well you performed in your secondary school examination; admission will be given without Jamb Examinations.

Introduction of Jamb Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) came on board where people sit for the examination and at the end of the day admission will be strictly given by JAMB on ones scores\performance, the best candidates’ names are sent to their choices of schools for immediate admission.

This was a nice turnout but it got to an extent where some people can’t afford to register for JAMB. In this condition, students who might have passed out from secondary school a long time ago stay at home every year waiting for when they will be able to afford the fees.

Meanwhile, the under privileged, hopefully waiting if JAMB will find a better solution, not knowing that some universities have a better or worst solution. They introduced Post Jamb where candidates who have better scores of the university’s cut off points travel from far places to their choice of schools, most especially to their first choices to sit for the university’s aptitude test.

Post jamb was embraced by some universities but luckily for some students University of Maiduguri was left out of the system, the school was identified as one of the school that was not involved in it, but later joined other schools in conducting the exams. It is surprising that some schools will stay one week conducting this exams and some will just last for two to three hours in a day.

WHY? Is it that they don’t trust our Nigerian students or is it another avenue for generating money? More than 5,000 students may have participated and possibly only 1,000 students gained the admission, including those that didn’t participate in Post Jamb but have connection to manipulate the results.

Unknowingly, in doing that, it is still a great mistake because these students who claim to have up to 270 points in Jamb and could not score 70 in Post Jamb, are still given the credit they didn’t work for it thereby producing graduates that cannot construct simple sentence to the detriment of the good ones.

If this must continue, universities should consider the distance which some of these students go through aside the risks of accidents and armed robbers on the way. They should try and award marks to those who deserve them and not otherwise.