The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, was established by an Act of 1978, subsequently amended in 1989 and 1993.14 per cent pass and 86 per cent failure at the just-concluded 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, conducted by JAMB, divergent views have been expressed by stakeholders as to what led to the poor performance by the candidates.
While some said it was a reflection of the state of education in the country, others blamed a number of factors for the situation.
According to JAMB registrar, Prof. Ishaq Olarenwaju Oloyede, as reported on May 24, 2021, the board registered about 1,223,962 JAMB UTME candidates and about 63,586 JAMB Direct Entry candidates for the 2021 JAMB examination.
The board having set Literature-in-English questions from the 2021-2025 curriculum in last year’s examination, reversed to the old curriculum that began in 2016 and expired in 2020.
A reasonable literature teacher must have been preparing his students using the new syllabus. Many students have been reading the nine texts and 12 poems apart from the normal literary appreciation so hard that they were put into shame and were confused by the official examination questions set for them.
By implication, those that aspire to study courses with literature in English requirements in the university will spend another year or will be forced to study courses outside their choice which is the concern of all students affected.
Many of the students came out of their examinatiins looking forlorn and weak because they were not in any way expecting what JAMB gave them to write. Students where insulting their teachers for not giving them the correct novels to read for their examinations. The hope to study literature related courses was dashed and this has served as a discouraging factor to some of the students who feel they cannot write the examinations again.
In our family, my younger sister’s dream of becoming a computer scientist and a news caster was shattered due to the situation.
I therefore consider it necessary to share some tips to pass JAMB as follows:
- Create a time chart of your current activities
- Develop a schedule and reading time table
- Stick to your study plan. 4: Go through at least ten recent years of past questions to get patterns.
5: Use examination focus textbooks to study according to the syllabus
6: Solve at least 20 years of past questions yourself at least twice.
7: Practice at least one timed test daily two weeks to the examination.
8: Mentally write the examination before the main examination.
Students are advised to use these steps while preparing for JAMB, with this more success will be recorded. However, I wish to call on the examination body, JAMB, to be linient when setting future questions.
Hauwa Ibrahim an intern at PR Nigeria writes from Kano
