JAMB Registrar, Dibu Ojerinde, VS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE

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Worried about the mass failure in this year’s Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination, the House of Representatives yesterday criticized the use of the Computer-based Test (CBT) deployed by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) during this year’s examinations conducted across the country last month at an interactive session held by the House Committee on Education.
Chairman of the House Committee on Education, Hon. Aminu Suleiman (PDP, Kano), who made the observation during an interactive session with JAMB management on the mass failure of candidates, called on the Board to put proper mechanisms on ground “by aggregating the number of computer literate students across the country in order to ensure success of students in upcoming examinations.”
“Though we are not averse to development with regards to Information Technology but most candidates are not in any way familiar with the CBT being introduced by JAMB,” saying it might have contributed to the mass failure at the examination.
“We received petitions against JAMB from various parts of the country on the conduct of the examination. Some candidates could not find their pictures during the prior exam screening as a result of which they went into the examination hall traumatized. There were protests all over the country by affected candidates,” he said.
Suleiman expressed concern that after spending huge sums to register their wards, most parents were shocked to receive the news that their children’s results were not released, stating that there was need for adequate sensitization on the part of JAMB.
In his presentation to the committee, the JAMB Registrar, Dibu Ojerinde, denied that there was no mass failure during the examination, saying that JAMB actually recorded a comfortable improvement and that the board only conducts definitive examinations in the form of objectives.
Contributing to the merits of the CBT, he disclosed that the management spent a paltry sum of N27million to conduct this year’s examination, half of previous times. On cases of impersonation in some states, he said the culprits have been handed over to the police.