JAMB begins UTME overhaul, targets critical thinking

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has commenced a review of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination to determine whether critical thinking, life skills and other competencies should be introduced into the assessment of candidates seeking admission into tertiary institutions.

JAMB Registrar, Prof. Segun Aina, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja while inaugurating a committee of education stakeholders and experts to examine the proposed changes.

Aina said the review was necessary because candidates already undergo subject-based assessments in their Senior Secondary School Certificate examinations conducted by bodies such as the West African Examinations Council and the National Examinations Council.

He said JAMB’s primary responsibility was to rank candidates for admission rather than duplicate the subject certification role of other examination bodies.

“So ours is a ranking task. It’s not necessarily to test your subject matter expertise. So we feel for the UTME examination to be purely subject matter is a duplicity of effort of sorts,” he said.

The registrar said the committee would examine whether skills required to function effectively in real-life situations should form part of the criteria for selecting candidates for tertiary education.

He also questioned whether the existing examination methodology could still accurately predict students’ academic performance after admission.

“Are the methods that we are employing to check and predict who will do well in the university or the polytechnic or the college of education, are they still valid? Are they good enough?” he asked.

Representing the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, the Technical Assistant to the Acting Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr Oni Adedeji, said the initiative was part of the Federal Government’s broader efforts to reform assessment.

Alausa tasked the committee with developing assessment modalities that would be standardised, fair and transparent, while going beyond candidates’ ability to recall subject content.

He said the review must determine how analytical, logical and verbal reasoning could be assessed, and whether the proposed components should constitute a separate examination or be incorporated into existing UTME subjects.

The chairman of the committee, Prof. Boniface Nworgu of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, said the panel would examine how effectively UTME identifies candidates with the potential to succeed in tertiary education.

Nworgu said the committee would demand evidence before recommending changes, stressing that any modified examination must be assessed to determine whether it produces better outcomes.

The committee, comprising representatives of universities, examination bodies, professional regulatory councils, secondary schools, students’ organisations and development agencies, has been given an initial four weeks to examine the proposal.

JAMB will thereafter determine the next phase of the exercise, including possible engagement with assessment experts to develop the technical details of any framework eventually adopted.