2017 admission: Cut-off mark is realistic benchmark for national dev’t -JAMB

…..It’s gross misplacement of priority and exercise in futility-says NANS
Amidst the trending controversy over the pegging of university admission cut off mark to 120 at the recently held 2017 admission exercise by stakeholders at a policy meeting in Abuja, the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has come out in defence of the decision, saying it was done out of deep concern for realistic admission benchmarks for national development.

However, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has condemned the 120 cut off mark for admission into universities, describing the exercise as a gross misplacement of priority and exercise in futility.

But a press release on the cut off mark which was signed by the JAMB’s Head of Media Relations, Dr. Fabian Benjamin and made available to newsmen in Abuja, said the agency will remain undeterred in saying the truth for fear of being condemned but will continue to say the truth as it is and support policies that would bring Nigeria’s education system out of the woods.

The statement reads in part: “Today it is a known fact that millions of Nigerians are out there schooling in mushroom institutions and they will at the end come back with all kinds of degree certificates that we cannot explain its content.

Our naira is continually devalued as a result of so many reasons including the pressure to pay these school’s fees’’.

‘’Irrespective of this turn of event in our education history, our tertiary institutions hardly fill their available spaces otherwise known as carrying capacity.

So, it is obvious that the quest to go abroad for foreign education is not as a result of shortage of spaces or standard given some of the institutions attended by these Nigerians but partly due to some of our policies and attitude to national values and deep concern for realistic benchmarks for national development’’.

‘’The question we all should be concerned about is how to address the flight of Nigerians to glorified secondary schools called universities in Ghana, Uganda and even Gambia and others.

How do we ensure that whatever we do has positive multiplier effects on other sectors of the economy? If we deny our candidates the opportunity to school in Nigeria, they will find their way out and in doing that depletes our economic base’’.

‘’To provide answers to all these challenges, stakeholders decided that institutions should be allowed to determine their cut off marks according to their peculiarities and the quality and standard they want to be known for.

It is expedient to state here that the worst admitted cut off mark in a Nigerian institution is far better than allowing them to fly out to some of the institution they are attending out there which we all know are nothing to be proud of.

Besides events have shown that many institutions do not comply with cut off marks in the past hence the flood of requests for regularization. Now the new management has resolved to stop it and ensure full compliance with resolutions on cut off marks.’’

The Board’s spokesman further assured that the agency will ensure that all anomalies existing especially as regards the powers of institutions to make pronouncements on admissions and other related matters affecting the institutions are duly corrected, adding that the public should remember that JAMB is a creation arising from the demands of the Vice Chancellors for a central institution that will streamline the process of admission and eliminate multiplicity of entranced examination and admissions.

On how the cut off mark was arrived at, he maintained that all heads of tertiary institutions were requested to submit their cut off benchmark to the Board which will then be used for the admission exercise and that the benchmarks once determined cannot be changed in the middle of admission exercise.

He further explained that the 120 mark does not in any way suggest that once you have 120 then admission is certain but that institutions will admit from the top to the least mark.

Meanwhile, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) under the leadership of Comrade Chinonso Obasi, has condemned the recent backwards review of the cut off marks for admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria from 180 for universities and 165 polytechnics, now 120 and 100 respectively, describing the exercise as a gross misplacement of priority and exercise in futility.

A press release by the association’s President, Comrade Chinonso Obasi, which was made available to newsmen in Abuja, said knowledge acquisition is a function of determination and hard work and that if over the years, students were able to work hard to meet cut off points, it doesn’t make any logical sense to now lower the standard and insisted that the inability of any student to meet the cut off points is a function of outright indolence that should not be encouraged.

According to Obasi, even by the current status, the general phenomenon is that Nigerian graduates are not employable; the lowering of standard will translate to a disastrous outcome by churning out young people who cannot fit into the demands and expectations of the 21st century.

Obasi further insisted that Nigerian youth are intelligent and willing to learn and argued that because of the enabling environment provided by tertiary institutions abroad, Nigerian students who school abroad are known to study and come out with exemplary performance.

He added that the 21st century is driven by innovation and competitiveness and so lowering the entering level into tertiary institution will only further contribute to reducing the productivity and peak performance of young people seeking admission into the country’s higher institutions of learning.

He decried the high level of inconsistencies in policy formulation and implementation in the educational sector and called on government to mainstream and benchmark global best practices in educational policy formulation and implementation and concentrate more efforts to address germane issues bedeviling education in Nigeria rather than embarking on frivolous policies that would further compound the falling standard of education in Nigeria.