Why UTME should not be scrapped

The sudden quest of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), to scrap the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME), is very worrisome and there is need to advise ASUU to quickly discontinue with its agitation and abort its plan completely. ASUU has claimed that only universities can set better and professional examinations for their candidates.
It is very unfortunate that ASUU is coming up with this kind of demand without being considerate. One would have  expected ASUU to rather give professional advice to the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, on how to conduct better examinations for its candidates. Instead of calling for the cancellation of UTME. However, ASUU has forgotten that there is unemployment dilemma in the country and by scrapping UTME, many people would lose their jobs and become burdens to their families and the nation at large. It is very obvious that its quest will cause more harm than good to the people, education sector and the nation.  One  can simply conclude that the cancellation of the post-UTME in the universities by the federal government is what pushed ASUU to come out  with this demand. It is true that universities were generating a lot of funds from the fees paid by candidates. IIN a way, cancellation of the post-UTME meant a great loss of free and easy revenue. It should be noted that the decision by the federal government to cancel the post-UTME became necessary due to the complaints by the public, who tagged the entire process as extortion and exploitation of candidates by the universities.
Also, ASUU’s claim that scrapping the UTME would be in the best interest of university education in the country is not really true.
The observable fact remains that the universities are looking for more ways of generating revenue. Therefore, scrapping UTME and giving them the mandate to conduct admission examinations would be a huge opportunity to increase their internally generated revenue.  In view of the foregoing, it would be hard for one to support ASUU’s quest for scrapping of UTME. It has been observed that the promotional examination papers in many universities are  to often leaked to some students before the date of writing such examination and that is examination malpractice and corruption as well. It is no longer news that some lecturers befriend students and allow them access to examination questions ahead of time to enable them perform better than others in their courses and that is very unprofessional and unacceptable.
This is still ongoing in some of the universities in the country but at least, UTME is not known for that. Therefore, The Federal Ministry of Education and other relevant bodies should not support ASUU in its quest and allow the universities to conduct admission examinations.
► Awunah Pius Terwase, wrote from Mpape, Abuja, via piusawunah@ymail.com
08179289949

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