The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has confirmed that there was a mass failure in the just concluded Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME)
The board disclosed that the performance of candidates in the 2021 UTME is poorer than what it recorded within the past three years or thereabouts.
The JAMB Registrar, Isiaq Oloyede, revealed this on Saturday evening while featuring on Nigerian Television Authority’s (NTA) programme tagged ”Weekend File.”
Oloyede said the COVID-19 pandemic was responsible for the poor performance of candidates in this year’s UTME Exam
He, however, cautioned critics that the performance would not affect the chances of the candidates in securing admission to their chosen higher institutions, saying the UTME is a ranking examination and not an achievement test.
Mr Oloyede anchored his position on the global instability caused by the coronavirus disease.
He said: ”But this is expected. In Nigeria, we think we do not live in a global community. All informed education experts understand why it is so. They knew the point at which we were in the academic calendar before the examination was taken in 2020 and in 2021.
“Last year, when they took the examination, they (the students) had gone far in their syllabus. But this year, they suffered incomplete academic sessions; they had to cope with emergency online lessons and even many other disturbances like insecurity.”
He said the result is a true reflection of the country’s state of education, saying “somebody should be surprised if there is no such an effect on the students’ performance.”
While explaining the statistics, Mr Oloyede said when the data of candidates who scored 120 marks and above out of the possible 400 in 2021 is compared to what obtained in 2020, there is a difference of 0.25 per cent. But it is worse when 2018 and 2019 performances are taken into consideration.
According to the registrar, the percentage of those who scored 120 marks and above out of the possible 400 in 2021 is 99.65 of the entire candidates but the figure stood at 99.80 in 2020.
He said: ”In 2018, it was 99.99 per cent but in 2019 it dropped to 99.92.
“Also, in 2020, 69.82 per cent of the total candidates who sat the UTME scored 160 and above but in 2021, it reduced to 65.62 per cent.”
Mr Oloyede added that in 2019, the percentage of those who scored more than 300 out of the possible 400 marks was 0.16 per cent while it was 0.26 per cent in 2020. But in 2021, he said the figure fell steeply to 0.06 per cent.
