1. Post UME infringes on the sole power right of
Jamb/UTME to give admissions
If you go through the JAMB act, it states that
only the body has the right to conduct exams
after charging fees, give undergraduate
admissions, carryout placements in Universities,
Polytechnics and Colleges of Education. The
universities are only supposed to send their
requirements and preferences. The only
exception is Post graduate admissions. But today
Universities charge another amount , sometimes
higher than JAMB’s to conduct a parallel exam
clearly defying the act, and give admissions
using methods known to no one else. Uniben
announced admission screening fee of 2000 and
optional 1000 for past questions. But the reality
is that, processing Uniben PUME/ ASE 2016
costs 3550. There is no option there, it just
displays this amount and asks for MasterCard/
Verve details.
2. Secondly, Post UME is not transparent, it is
even more fraud prone than JAMB
CBT has greatly reduced fraud, eliminating text
message answers, buying answers online and
impersonation. We now have biometric check in
and check out, and CBT even makes the exam
easier to invigilate as candidates are forced to
stare at their screens and nothing else. A bonus
is the availability of system calculator which
wasn’t totally available in the era of pencil test.
BUT Pume is not even standardized, no
preparation syllabus, some schools purposely set
questions from A-Level just to be wicked and
reduce number of successful people, others are
known for giving very little time. And at the end
they just send admission notification without
pasting any list publicly and denying some
admission even after surpassing the JAMB
cutoff.
3. Post UME introduces avenues for special
candidates getting better courses
Special candidates refers to Royal father’s
recommendees , governor’s candidates , VC’s
candidates, staff children and state of origin
waivers etc These sets of people would score
less than others and must get admitted , in many
cases get their course of choice.
In Uniben, to enter the college of Medicine, staff
kids have their cutoff 10marks below regular cut
off. So while a normal candidate aims for 70,
they’ll aim for 60. After taking the number of
staff kids they want, the rest is filled with merit
and government/royal candidates. And they all
wrote the same JAMB. And the non staff
candidates who fall under 60 < x < 70 are pushed
to pharmacy and Life Sciences.
That is one reason why they do not release
cutoff before results, as they need to fit in their
people first and adjust and that’s why majority of
the post ume era medical graduates are children
of doctors and professors; Not because Medicine
runs in their veins but because corruption runs
instead. There have also been reports of score
upgrade in different schools including UNIBEN.
And That is what gives rise to fraudsters, result
checkers and predators who take advantage of
candidates giving them fake admission. And the
school waits till final year exams before
publishing lists of fake students, meanwhile
they’ve been collecting school fees from 100L.
4. Post UME destroys the JAMB score
For instance , someone who scored 280 in JAMB
would have his score divided by 8 giving 35 and
this will be added to half the PUME score.
Another person who scored 240 would see his
score transformed to 30.. only 5 marks
difference. Assuming the second guy scores 70
in PUMe and the first guy scores 60, after
dividing by two and adding to both Jamb scores,
the two aggregate scores would be equal! The
PUME now more weighted than JAMB. That’s
why it is possible to “pass 220 and not enter
school”.
One would expect that the PUME score is the
one divided and transformed after all it is the
illegal exam!
5. PUME makes it difficult for Jamb to monitor
admissions
An admission body that is relegated in its own
game. One would expect that at this time
parents would clamour for schools to start
pasting their admission lists with raw scores
attached. not a case of someone with 53 given
Law and another person with 65 reading Foreign
languages when they both put Law as first
choice.
Jamb is still a major exam that can never be
replaced by the schemes of money-for-grades
lecturers.
Some may argue that Jamb scores are lower
than students expect. This is because of Item
Response Psychometric testing method, which is
why people talk about negative marking etc. This
method does not aggregate all the questions
gotten correct, instead questions carry different
marks depending on the set difficulty and
depending on how many people answer that
question.
And PUME has seen schools flooded with kids
without emotional intelligence and they can’t
fend for themselves, they rush through and pass
out and it doesn’t even seem like they went to
school.
Drop your comments Nigerians.
