Candidates spend over N10bn on post-UME
By Segun Olugbile
Published: Tuesday, 7 Oct 2008
By the time Nigerian universities complete admission processes for the 2008/2009 session, candidates may have spent over N10bn in addition to the N2,826,204,900 that the 911,679 candidates that applied for the UME expended on the purchase of registration forms from the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board.

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Performance by state – males and females who scored above 200 are listed below

JAMB sold each form for N3,000 while banks charged N100 on each of the forms sold. This excludes money spent by the candidates on exigencies such as transport to and from examination centres, passport photographs and payment made to operators of cybercafés for online registration.

Candidates who wrote the examination in Cameroun, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Benin Republic and Ghana also expended additional cost on transport and logistics.

Close to N10bn was raked in by universities from candidates that scored 200 and above in the UME. Some universities even allowed candidates that scored below 170 to write the post-UME.

While the JAMB Registrar, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, has consistently called for the scrapping of the post-UME, the former Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission, Prof. Peter Okebukola, has insisted that the test must be strengthened and consolidated.

The NUC and the Committee of Vice-Chancellors had, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education under the leadership of the former Minister of Education, Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili, in 2006, introduced post-UME. It was meant to serve as a filtering process to separate academically suitable candidates from pretenders.

The ministry of education had warned the universities not to charge anything above N1,000 for the post-UME. But investigations conducted by our correspondent during the post-UME test in universities across the country revealed that most of them charged between N2,000 and N8,000.

Only the University of Ibadan conducted the exam free of charge. Some universities including the Lagos State University, Ojo, charged N2,000 per candidate, while Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, levied each of the over 23,000 candidates that sat for its post-UME test N3,000. The University of Ilorin, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, University of Lagos, University of Benin and Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye charged N2,000 per candidate.

Similarly, universities in Port Harcourt, Calabar, Zaria, Kano, Owerri and Minna levied candidates between N2,000 and N3,000. Private universities charge more. Before a candidate was allowed to participate in the post-UME test in most private universities, he or she must have purchased an admission form for between N5,000 and N6,000.

At the Lead City University, Ibadan, Oyo State, candidates were charged N2,000 each for the test and another N6,000 for the application form. Findings at the Redeemer University, Mowe, Ogun State, Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State, Bowen University, Iwo, Osun State, Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijagun-Ijebu-Ode, Crescent University, Abeokuta, Ogun State and Madonna University, Okija, Anambra State, revealed that a maximum of N2,000 was charged for the test while candidates bought a fresh application form for N5,000.

In all, the universities are likely to have raked in almost N10bn from the candidates given the fact that some candidates that scored less than 200 participated in the examination in some cases. For instance, some universities such as LASU did another round of post-UME for thousands of candidates to fill what the institution’s management called vacancies for indigenes and non-indigenes in some of its departments.

Unfortunately, in spite of the multiple fees that candidates pay to secure university admission, less than 200,000 out of the nearly one million candidates that obtained JAMB forms are sure of securing university placement.

JAMB’s registrar and others calling for the scrapping of post-UME test argue that most universities have turned the exercise into an avenue to shore up their internally generated revenue.

A parent, Mr. Ladanu Sangodeji, whose son wrote the post-UME at LASU, said the test should be scrapped, because the universities were only interested in money.

“Have you ever heard it before that a university will be declaring vacancies when it has not offered admission to candidates that had been tested? It is to make money, let them stop it,” he said.

His position was reechoed by Ojerinde, who said that the exercise was unnecessary as it was just an avenue to exploit the candidates.

Ojerinde said that since the board had proved its effectiveness in the conduct of the UME, universities should stop dissipating energy on the post-UME.

“Let me say that JAMB doesn’t have any problem. Whatever post-UME they want to do, let them do it. However, they must do it right. What we notice is that some of them are not doing it right. For example, all the universities are supposed to be at this meeting today. But some are just conducting their post-UME today and tomorrow and they are expecting JAMB to be there. It’s not possible. For the post-UME, the regulation is that JAMB must be present. There is a law guiding this thing; you must abide by it. When I say that it’s (post-UME) not necessary, I assume that we’ve all seen that JAMB is on track,’’ Ojerinde told our correspondent.

The former Vice- Chancellor, UNILAG, Prof. Oye Ibidapo-Obe, admitted that some universities were not doing it right, but said this was not enough to call for the scrapping of the test.

“Post-UME should not be scrapped. What is necessary is to design uniform and consistent methodology for the screening exercise. Remember that the post-UME exercise was introduced to correct the lapses from JAMB/UME, especially impersonation,” he said.

Okebukola said scrapping post-UME because of its cost implication on candidates would rubbish the gains already made in the university system since it was introduced.

He said the exercise had among others, helped in filtering out candidates with dubious UME scores; reduced the prevalence rate of social vices such as cultism and examination malpractice on campuses; enhanced job satisfaction for lecturers as they encounter more intelligent and better motivated students in class; and increased the efficiency of the system. “I have personally benefited from this dividend as I find the 200- and 300-level students that I taught last session in LASU to be among the best group of undergraduates I have encountered in my 35-year teaching career.”

In addition, Okebukola said the post-UME had improved respectability of the Nigerian university system as a result of better public perception of Nigerian undergraduates.

Rather than scrap the exercise, he said the problem of financial exploitation by some universities should be resolved.

“We should encourage the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and the NUC to develop guidelines for financing post-UME. The guidelines, he said, should factor in cost of examination materials mainly printing; photocopying; and stationery; token honorarium for invigilation, supervision and grading; security expenses and other expenses.

Candidates who spoke with our correspondent expressed worry over the limited university space in Nigerian universities. One of them, Seyi Alaga, who applied to study Economics at the OAU, said the only thing that was paramount on his mind was to gain admission and not the cost of post-UME. “Let the government license more public and private universities, let them encourage the poor to go to university,” he said.

Another lecturer at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UNILAG, Prof. Funso Falade, said the cost would not be a problem if the options open to the candidates in terms of accessibility were many. “I think what we should be craving for is how to open access to university education. To address the problem of poverty, our governments should emulate their counterparts abroad by providing scholarships and loans for the indigent. Education at whatever level is not cheap, let our leaders stop playing politics with it,” he said.


From: http://punchontheweb.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art200810071640864

@Poster
Good. . . . . . .Really good
But in my own opinion,i think post Ume should be scraped
That thing is just a money making venture for our Institutions
Because as time goes on,Candidate will have to pay N10,000
In our Federal Universities to sit for PUME.

yes its true! even some people pay more,