The recent declaration by the Registrar of The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede has created widespread concerns and a melting pot of opinions amongst Nigerians.
The Registrar of the agency tasked with conducting of The Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), announced on Tuesday in a press briefing that about 76% of this year’s candidates scored 200 or below.
This shocking yet factual statement has created quite a ruckus amongst the populace as it serves up yet another embarrassing challenge the nation and its citizenry must contend with. The startling and unfortunate revelation has stirred up diverse and polarizing opinions on what potentially could be the cause of such an abysmal outcome in the recently concluded examination.
A large section of the masses strongly believes the negative impact of social media has a critical role to play in the appalling result that was announced. Social media is an amoral tool that offers both positive value and negative returns to its user. Social media has been a source of unbelievable philanthropy and a powerful tool for social change and empowerment. The other side of the coin however paints a troubling picture of a platform that can create crippling distractions, vile and hateful interactions, and even civil unrest. It’s little wonder some governments are either regulating social media or seriously considering such actions.
Parents constantly lament on how kids spend so much time on different platforms like Tik-Tok, Instagram, Twitter and even gaming communities. Time that would have been wisely spent studying or taking after school learning classes end up being wasted online on frivolous routines.
The emergence of social media also came with the influencer bug where people leverage their online popularity for commercial gains through endorsement of brands and marketing of products and services on their platforms. Young people now see a quicker route to financial gratification and as such no longer place value in the academic journey.
Another school of thought in society are of the opinion that the poor outcome of candidates was largely due to technical challenges encountered during the Computer Based Test (CBT) that has been deployed by the exam board for the past few years steering away from paper-based system. They have been reported incidents of candidates not gaining access to platform or loosing access whilst in the middle of the examination. Cases of certain centers struggling with internet access has also been reported with some centers being delayed for hours because of these internet provider issues.
In fairness to the exam board, the registrar announced that during the 2024 examination, only 25 sessions experienced technical hiccups disrupting only 150 of the total 9,156 sessions in 95 of the 774 centres across the country. These numbers seem to account for a small percentage of the CBT disruption and cannot be largely assumed to be a key factor in the high number of below average performance of candidates.
One of the opinions that was heavily debated on social media platform X formerly known as Twitter was the current economic state of the nation having a damaging ripple effect on the academic priority of the youth in the country today.
Global audit company, KPMG in 2023 announced an unemployment rate of over 41% in Nigeria which speaks to the fact that almost half of the employable workforce in the country are either self employed or without a job. With about 4-5 million new entrants in the labour market every year and a rising unemployment rate, it doesn’t take much to understand the apathy of the youths towards the UTME system.
Many young Nigerians cannot seem to see the light at the end of the tunnel and would rather seek out “get rich quick” schemes like sports betting, internet fraud, and Ponzi schemes as the desire to forge a career through the university system is gradually losing its lustre. This is clearly a serious reason for the dreadful performance of this year’s UTME candidates and one that cannot be ignored or taken lightly.
In the past, intending candidates and their parents made sure to put in every effort humanly possible to ensure success at the exams. Enrolment in after school lessons was a common activity with students constantly labouring over compilations of past exam questions in a bid to hone their understanding on test subjects. It even became a contest amongst most students on who would earn the higher score in the exams.
There seem to be adequate evidence to suggest that all the reasons being debated could indeed be responsible for the underwhelming outcome of the 2024 Test but I strongly believe that we as a nation, we as concerned citizenry, we as responsible parents and guardians must quickly move beyond the “blame game” and begin to actively seek out solutions to mitigate this intending academic disaster we are currently faced with. If targeted and timely measures are not deployed, this has the potential to not only become a national embarrassment but to also mortgage the future and productivity of the nation.
One of the roads to economic recovery is a budding and equipped workforce and Nigeria boasts of a labour force of over 80 million people yet about a half of that number are currently unemployed. As much as we understand the importance of self employment to the growth and development of the nation’s GDP, there is still a huge deficit in the number of able-bodied youths without jobs and a means to be productive members of society.
Government must move beyond propaganda and begin to improve the state of the education system of the nation. Improved welfare and training for teachers must be prioritized, a teeming number of public schools need to be revamped and well equipped to meet global standards. The current outdated curriculum of our secondary schools needs to be reassessed and reconstituted to serve current academic levels as obtained globally. Parents also have a crucial role to play in effectively shepherding these young ones and curtailing the negative effect of social media on their lives.
This atrocious result announced by JAMB must serve as a wake-up call to government, parents, academic administrators, and society at large. The future of the nation is at stake and we must swiftly move from posturing on social media to actively seeking and implementing solutions to restore the academic integrity of our young ones.... they are as we always say, “the leaders of tomorrow”.
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