2016 UTME: A glut of foreseen challenges

Since the 2016 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) began last week Saturday February 27, 2016 in over 500 centers spread across the country, stories of server failures, change of venues, inexcusable delays have continued to trail the examination.
JAMB had last Monday cancelled two centers in the ongoing UTME following complaints of poor facilities provided by the centers’ administrators in Lagos. Dr Beatrice Okorie, the Coordinator at the National Headquarters (Annex) of JAMB disclosed this to newsmen in Lagos; naming the affected centers as Huntview Technology Limited in Anthony village and the New Ocean Comprehensive High School in Ayobo area of Lagos.
Besides poor facilities, the Minister of Education Malam Adamu Adamu has also expressed concern over the plight of candidates who are not computer literate enough to write the UTME through the Computer-Based Test (CBT) mode. Malam Adamu made his worries known on Tuesday March 1, 2016 while monitoring the 2016 UTME at JAMB’s Model CBT center at Kogo in Bwari Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The CBT mode which puts some candidates at disadvantage due largely to their low level of dexterity in handling computer machines is one critical matter that still needs to be addressed.
If JAMB had actually wanted the minister of education to have proper knowledge of the conduct of the UTME, a model center was not the right venue to take the minister to. The choice of the examination center to be visited should have been left to the discretion of the minister who could choose to monitor the UTME at one of the remotely-sited venues outside of those designated as model centers. A model center, given its name, is likely to have a near-perfect examination situation that may not be a true representation of what obtains in majority of the UTME venues.
This sort trend has over the years become a deep-seated culture among chief executives of government agencies who most often stage-manage the tour of their superior officers to their domains so that the latter would be blocked from getting to know about the real situation of things. Local government chairmen in Nigeria are professionals in this trick as they take visiting governors or other august visitors through the best roads; avoiding bad roads and filthy neighbourhoods in order to give the impression that the local government has good roads and is equally dirt free. 
Malam Adamu Adamu should have rather been guided to, for instance, visit Victory International Institute of Theology and Education at Yangoji village in Kwali Area Council of the FCT. What I observed at this examination center which is located in a bush at km 70 on the Abuja-Lokoja highway is highly disappointing. I was at this center at 7.00pm on Monday February 29, 2016 to pick a candidate who had gone to write the UTME at 9.30am only to hear that the set of candidates which was scheduled to write the examination at 6.30am was just coming out from the examination hall. Although no one explained to candidates the reasons for such an elongated delay, server failure and limited number of computer machines were some plausible causative factors of the setback at the center.
There are enough reasons why Yangoji center should not have been one of the examination venues. As at 10.00pm on Monday February 29, 2016 when the 9.30am set of candidates came out of the examination hall, some of them who came from Lokoja and Kaduna became stranded; let alone candidates who came from farther distances. The Abuja-Lokoja highway is known to be notorious for robbery cases. The small number of un-armed members of the Civil Defense Corps seen around was grossly inadequate to guarantee the security of lives and property at this particular examination venue.
All these delays in addition to the scorching sun under which candidates remain for long hours put the reliability of the UTME to question as the examination results obtainable for the same group of candidates when they are not subjected to delays and fatigue under the sun would be different; making such results unreliable. For any test or examination to be credible, it must be reliable. And for it to be reliable, it must be consistent in the results produced by it over time.
Although the Nigerian public including this writer is not privy to the criteria used by JAMB in selecting UTME centers, better secured public schools such as the Federal Government College as well as the FCT-owned Government Secondary School both within Kwali township would have served as better than the Victory Institute of Theology that is located in the bush. As at 6.45am on Thursday March 3, 2016; the gate of the Victory Institute at Yangoji had not opened for candidates even though the first set of candidates was due to have started their examination at 6.30am. The selection of irregular examination centers such as the Victory Institute at Yangoji gives weight to the insinuation that sentiment (tribal or religious) probably influenced JAMB’s choice of examination centers.
Paper-Pencil Test (PPT) and CBT were both used in 2013 UTME. But when JAMB declared in 2014 that CBT was going to be the only testing mode for the that year’s UTME, the National Assembly passed a resolution then; mandating JAMB to put its plans for CBT as the only mode for UTME on hold. It is amazing that while the ongoing UTME is marred by crises, our senators are rather debating the extension of the validity period for UTME result; ignoring the challenges suffered by candidates in the current UTME.
Thinking like the minister of education who said ‘I think we should combine CBT and PPT for some time…’, CBT may not be the best option for now especially in an educational system where students in their sixth year of secondary education (especially in public schools), like many of their teachers, may never have on their own started or shutdown a desktop computer. After all, many school principals do not have even one desktop in their own offices. For these and other challenges that have not been raised here, it is better that JAMB errs on the side of caution by re-thinking its use of CBT as the only testing mode for UTMEs.  May Allah (SWT) guide our educational policy makers to take the best of decisions, amin.