House of Reps summon JAMB Registrar over mass failure of candidates in 2013 UTME

Reactions trailing the mass failure of candidates in this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), have continued as the House of Representatives has summoned the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board,JAMB, Prof Dibu Ojerinde.

Although investigations showed that the failure had a lot to do with some of the candidates’ reliance on answers provided by fraudsters, other candidates have claimed that the use of computer affected their performance.

The result of the examination as released by JAMB showed many students scoring below 150, out of the 400 marks, with only 10 scoring above 300.

Speaking on the matter, Thursday, Chairman, House Committee on Education, Hon. Aminu Suleiman said that the summons became necessary due to series of complaints and protests by a cross section of Nigerians.

“We heard that JAMB authorities had formally explained some reasons for the mass failure.

“This is not enough if the content of the complaints of Nigerians is anything to go by. One of the complaints concerns the usage of computer for the exam that most of them had never had contact with before.

“It can be recalled that the House passed a resolution asking JAMB not to use computer for the 2013 exams and they said they would make it optional; but there were still complaints by candidates that some of them filled the manual or paper option only to find themselves being asked to write the exams using computers”, he said.

The lawmaker added that the mass failure might not be unconnected with the introduction of computers for the exams, bearing in mind that most candidates, especially from Government secondary schools were not exposed to computer before.

Accordingly, he said the committee was poised to finding a lasting solution to the perennial failure of Nigerians in the last JAMB examination.