…Say it makes mockery of education

From Magnus Eze, Abuja

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The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has continued to receive knocks over its decision to peg admission cut-off marks at 120 and 100 for universities and polytechnics respectively.
Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), yesterday, faulted the recent cut-off points announced by JAMB, describing it as an embarrassment to the nation’s educational system.
The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) last week, led protest to the Bwari headquarters of JAMB in Abuja, where they condemned the cut-off marks reduction by the board and stakeholders.
National President of ASUP, Usman Dutse who made the position of the union known in Abuja, said they totally reject the new admission cut-off mark.
The cut-off points, as announced by the regulator represent 25 per cent of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) marks of 400, which according to him, amounted to failure anywhere in the world.
Dutse enjoined stakeholders not to encourage such a retrogressive decision; wondering why JAMB did not consult other key stakeholders for inputs if it wanted to review the cut-off marks, rather than unilaterally fixing such a ridiculous figure for an exam that should test students’ capabilities.
“We don’t actually know what JAMB wants to achieve with that decision but as a major stakeholder, all we know is that 100 and120 as a cut-off points are too low. I believe in any global standard examination rating, 25 per cent is failure because 100 and 120 are more or less 25 per cent of the exam which as I said earlier is failure.  So using that as a benchmark standard is degrading and the effect would be that quality would be eroded,” ASUP said.
He described as baseless argument that institutions can upgrade the cut-off marks to suit them, saying such scenario would mean that the matriculation board had become irrelevant.
He also faulted the directive of staggered admission saying “the decision to also stagger admission that universities will finish both first and second choices before polytechnics and colleges of education, means it is the remnants and low students that would go to the polytechnics and colleges of education by implication”.
While calling for concurrent admission process for all the institutions, ASUP claimed that the new rule was a ploy to further increase the dichotomy between the universities and polytechnics by giving priority to the former, thereby making students of polytechnics and colleges of education inferior.