UI ASUU tackles Education Minister over post JAMB screening

The Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Ibadan Chapter, Dr. Deji Omole has lashed out at the Minister of Education, Alhaji Adamu Adamu for trampling on the autonomy of university in admission of students over his purported ‘autocratic pronouncement on banning post-JAMB examinations in Nigeria Universities.’

ASUU stated that rather than concentrating on fundamental issue of funding universities and meeting ASUU-FGN 2009 agreements where the Federal Government is owing public universities about N1billion intervention fund, the Minister ‎entered into a domain where he lacked powers.

Omole said that the Education Minister seems unaware of extant university autonomy granted the Senate of Nigerian Universities to determine the procedures for the conduct of admission and regulate admission of its students.

Omole, in a release on Sunday condemned what he called “shallow thought in high places as exemplified by a pronouncement to ban the conduct of Post JAMB examinations, which is not based on sound research as expected from a Minister of Education.”

Dr. Omole stated that the decentralisation of JAMB should be carried out by Federal Government since the examination body‎ cannot conduct credible and dependable examination upon which credible universities like University of Ibadan can rely.

The ASUU boss disclosed that a research conducted at the University of Ibadan, headed by Professor Afolabi Bamgboye, constituted to ascertain “students’ performance in relation to JAMB scores”, indicated that  higher JAMB scores has negative relationship with the performances of students at 100 university degree examinations.

According to Dr. Omole, JAMB has outlived its credibility as indicated in last examination exercise it conducted where candidates who did not finish examinations or had issues with their Computer Based Test, were awarded extra 40 marks arbitrarily without justifications.

Omole said a Nigerian Minister of Education must make pronouncement based on sound academic research not on road-side talk which queries his very essence of being appointed as a Minister.

He stated that the UI research conducted on students affirmed the inability of JAMB to conduct credible examination that can be trusted solely for the admission of candidates into Nigerian Universities.

“This study conducted across Faculties at the University of Ibadan has shown that UME score has either a negative or weak correlation with performance at university level, indicating that the higher the scores at UME, the lower is the performance at 100 level as shown by the Cumulative Grade Point Averages (CGPA) at university degree examination.

“The results of the research, however, established that the performance at SSCE or NECO is statistically significantly correlated with CGPA. This shows that the performance at SSCE may be a good determinant of student academic ability to cope with university education because of their high performance at 100 level. How we admit are based on a Board that award arbitrary marks to students? As it stands University of Ibadan can only admit 10 percent of those who apply to it” he said.