By Uche Nworah, Ph.D
In saner climes, the big men who conducted this year’s JAMB exams should have since tendered their resignation letters, with the Registrar himself, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, leading the pack. Crying on national television doesn’t cut it for me. What we have just witnessed with the release of the results is not only a national but an international embarrassment. It puts the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu government in a bad light and takes away from the positives of ongoing educational reforms in the country.
The decision to have students in 157 centres across six states, Lagos, Anambra, Imo, Abia, Ebonyi, and Enugu, affecting 379,997 candidates out of the 1.9 million who registered, to resit the exams is a very big distraction for the young students. We have failed those students, simple!
Let’s think back to our era. We wanted to get JAMB quickly out of the way before battling the mighty WAEC/WASC exams, because the formats were different. The tension during the exam period can make you forget all that you have studied. To have to go through the same tension twice within weeks, with the associated travel risks that parents and students face is a lot to ask for.
Our young people may not be capable of dealing with the emotional and psychological stress this has caused them. There is a report already of a student taking their own life as a result of the scandal.
JAMB goofed big time in my view. Even though remedial action is being taken but it doesn’t absolve them of the responsibility. The President should wield the big stick because if this were abroad, lawsuits would have been flying left, right, and center.
JAMB can do better in 2025. Even with technology, they are still bungling. What more do they require?
I sat for JAMB during the days of Prof. M.S Angulu as the Registrar of JAMB. This was in the 80s, during the manual era when we had to physically purchase JAMB forms with the bulky brochure from the JAMB office at Ikot Ekpene road, Aba. JAMB posted the results first on their notice boards before sending the result slips through the post to candidates. The process worked. Maybe we should revert to that era since the technology currently in use by JAMB is not working.
