Thread by @MustapherSaeed

I just spoke to my brother who took the UTME and had Physics & Chemistry subjects in his combination. He told me how he had to skip a significant number of questions in those subjects because materials couldn't be provided for him to do rough work.

THREAD

At first, I started to blame him for not taking with him a pencil & eraser for rough work. But I was told that @JAMBHQ doesn't allow candidates to enter the exam hall with any of such things including wristwatches.

N.B: Candidates expect JAMB to provide materials for rough work

My brother also told me that only 10 pencils were available in a hall containing about 250 candidates. He initially waited for the arrival of the materials but they never showed up. He then moved on with qualitative questions that didn't require rough work with pencil. Cc @JAMBHQ

The boy never got to return to the quantitative tasks he skipped as the materials to work out their answers were never provided. This is not fair. What if all the quantitativetasks were where his strengths lie? Cc @JAMBHQ

I wanted to wait until the result is released before I share his story on Twitter but that could be mistaken with our grievance about his performance. And while we're still hoping that he scales despite @JAMBHQ's 'poor exam administration', it's important to draw their attention.

@JAMBHQ should see the UTME it organizes not just as a test but as a process of preparing future leaders. Thus, the process must be accorded with all sense of fairness & credibility in order not to frustrate the minds of keen young people that still have a future in Nigeria.

I know the energy I used teaching my brother exam tips guided by sincere will to make him do things in an ethical way & stay away from malpractice. He believed in me & went on to face UTME with genuine preparation.

Sadly, he got victimized by the ill-prepared system. Cc @JAMBHQ

This incident (that has definitely not affected only my brother) reminds us of the faulty method used in administering the computer-based UTME. The paper-pencil test is far better, less problematic for candidates and that was how I successfully took mine back in 2013. Cc @JAMBHQ

Because the test was administered on paper (in 2013), the examiners provided (to every candidate my eyes could see in the hall) a calculator, a pencil, and an eraser. I comfortably did a lot of rough work as I had to work out my answers in the economics & mathematics segment.

This 'computer-based test only' system employed in the UTME, we understand, is enabling gov't make huge profits in decreased cost of printing. The downside, however, is that it's affecting a lot of candidates by limiting their performance in the test. Cc @JAMBHQ

We must not allow the gov't's aggresive chase for revenue affect the quality of entrance exams into our universities. I strongly feel that the paper based UTME be re-introduced by @JAMBHQ as it fits the competency of most Nigerian secondary school leavers. Cc @OgbeniDipo

END