JAMB is reviewing the UTME format, which has remained largely unchanged for more than three decades, to align it with evolving demands in tertiary education.
Aina said the UTME was primarily a ranking examination for candidates who had already obtained their O’Level qualifications and should not duplicate subject assessments conducted by the West African Examinations Council, and the National Examinations Council.
According to him, candidates had already been assessed on subject knowledge at the O’Level stage. “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,” Aina said.
He said the proposed review would focus on skills candidates could apply in real-life situations and examine whether the methods used by JAMB were still valid for predicting candidates’ performance at universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
“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.
Aina said JAMB could not determine the best approach to the reform on its own, prompting the involvement of stakeholders from across the education sector. “We cannot be judges in our own matter,” he said. The committee has an initial four-week period to examine the proposal and make recommendations.
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The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, represented by his Technical Assistant, Mr Oni Adedeji, said the initiative aligned with the Federal Government’s efforts to reform assessment in the education sector.
Alausa charged the committee to develop a standard, fair and transparent assessment system that measures candidates’ analytical, logical and verbal reasoning abilities beyond their ability to recall subject content.
He said the committee would determine whether the proposed life skills and critical thinking components should be introduced as a separate standardized examination or incorporated into existing UTME subjects.
“The reform is aimed at creating an assessment system that will test not only what young Nigerians know, but also how effectively they can think, reason and solve problems,” he said.
The chairman of the committee, Prof. Boniface Nworgu of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, said the effectiveness of the UTME should be measured by its ability to identify candidates with strong potential to succeed in tertiary education.
Nworgu said JAMB conducts a selection examination rather than a certificate examination, making it important for the test to accurately predict candidates’ potential for academic success.
He said the validity of the UTME needed to be reviewed regularly because the curriculum and skills required by tertiary institutions had changed over the years.
According to him, the shift in university curricula from the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards to the Core Curriculum and Minimum Academic Standards had placed greater emphasis on skills and critical thinking.
Nworgu said the committee would consider other measures that could improve the predictive validity of the UTME and stressed the need for evidence to determine whether any changes introduced were achieving their intended objectives.
The committee comprises representatives from universities, examination bodies, professional regulatory councils, students’ groups, secondary schools and development organizations.
NAN
