By Ngozi Nwankwo
Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has inaugurated a committee to overhaul the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, with a plan to integrate life skills and critical thinking into the test.
Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Segun Aina, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja at the inauguration of the committee.
Aina said the move is to align Nigeria’s tertiary admission test with changing demands in higher education.
He explained that UTME performs a ranking function among candidates who already possess O-Level qualifications, and should not duplicate subject-based assessments conducted by the West African Examinations Council, WAEC, and the National Examinations Council, NECO.
“Candidates sitting for UTME have already been assessed at the subject-matter level through their O-Level examinations. For UTME to be purely subject matter is a duplicity of effort,” he said.
“Are the methods we are employing to predict who will do well in the university or the polytechnic still valid? Are they good enough?”he asked.
The Registrar noted that the UTME format has remained largely unchanged for more than three decades and must be reviewed for relevance.
“The biggest room in the house is the room for improvement,” he said.
Aina said the committee, comprising stakeholders across the education ecosystem, has an initial four weeks to examine the proposal from a conceptual perspective.
“We cannot be judges in our own matter. We have assembled a team of stakeholders who are also experts to guide us and ensure any decision is broadly acceptable,”he said.
The Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, represented by Mr. Oni Adedeji, Technical Assistant to the Acting Permanent Secretary, said the initiative aligns with Federal Government efforts to reform assessment in the education sector.
He charged the committee to develop standardized, fair and transparent modalities capable of measuring candidates’ analytical, logical and verbal reasoning beyond mere recall.
“The reform is aimed at creating a system that will test not only what young Nigerians know, but how effectively they can think, reason and solve problems,” he said.
Chairman of the committee, Prof. Boniface Nworgu of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, said the effectiveness of UTME should be measured by its ability to identify candidates with the strongest prospects of succeeding in tertiary education.
He said JAMB conducts a selection examination, not a certificate examination, and must accurately predict academic potential.
Nworgu linked the reform to the transition from Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards, BMAS, to Core Curriculum and Minimum Academic Standards, CCMAS, which emphasizes skills and critical thinking.
“If in the course of our deliberations we find other measures that can improve the predictive validity of the UTME, we’re certainly going to make appropriate recommendations,”he said.
He said the committee will insist on evidence to determine whether any proposed changes achieve their objectives.
