Every year, a lot of UTME candidates do ask series of questions why UTME results cannot be used more than one year, most especially, candidates who performed excellently but they were unable to gain admission.
On this blog post, we will be shedding more light on the said topic “Why UTME Results Cannot Be Used More Than One Year”.
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Why JAMB Results Cannot Be Used More Than One Year
The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Ishaq Oloyede has explained that results for the board’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) cannot last for more than one year because it is a ranking and not an achievement test.
He made this known in Kano during an interaction with journalists after an assessment tour of the board’s Computer-Based Test (CBT) center and others within the state as well as the board’s ongoing project.
Oloyede noted that achievement tests’ results can be ranked over a period or even for life because they “Are not one-chance examination, they take continuous assessments, they do practical assessments, on-the-spot assessment and a final exam, which is added together”, an example of this is JUPEB and other A’level examinations while the ranking test is “A one-chance examination; you cannot use it to accurately judge the capacity of the candidate because it is taken in one sitting and can be affected by several factors.”
For example: “Someone who wants to read medicine last year that scored 230 and this was why he could not do medicine. If you tell the person not to take another one this year but to use the last score, the student will not listen because you are killing the student, because we have to re-rank them for this year.”
Oloyede said the suggestions (for the result to last more than a year) were from people that do not know the nature and purpose of the exam, adding that the purpose of the examination determines the duration of the result.
On whether the post-UTME conducted by tertiary institutions is an indictment on the credibility of JAMB, Oloyede said the board does not have any problem with institutions having a say in how candidates are admitted, saying universities should not be deprived of re-ascertaining the qualities of candidates they want to take.
“The purpose (of JAMB UTME) is just to rank people who are assumed to be already qualified,” he said.
“If I am sure of the validity of my examination, I will not be afraid of you testing and re-testing the candidates because it will come back to almost the same thing. There were disparities in the past between our examination and the post-UTME, but that cannot be said again,” he said.
Credit: Daily Trust
