Afe Babalola kicks against JAMB cut-off marks
Founder and Chancellor of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), Aare Afe Babalola, (SAN) yesterday condemned in strong terms the Tuesday’s reduction of cut off marks into Nigerian universities to 120 marks and 100 marks for polytechnics, monotechnics and colleges of education.
He described the decision as the worst in history of Nigerian education.
This was as he called for urgent education summit to be attended by regulators and operators as well as well-meaning stakeholders in education to diffuse this “thick ice of confusion that has engulfed the nation’s education landscape.”
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) had on Tuesday after a meeting of the JAMB’s 2017 Combined Policy Meeting with Vice Chancellors, Rectors and Provosts of tertiary institutions in Abuja announced the reduction of JAMB cut off marks for students angling for admission into Nigerian universities to 120 and 100 for Polytechnics in Nigeria.
The legal icon, in a statement made available to New Telegraph yesterday, described the development as “violence to university education,” pointing out that the caveat by JAMB that each university has the right to set its own standard would not help matters as it portrays us all as not having an acceptable limit for setting standards.”
“Are we now saying there will be no uniform standards in our tertiary education in this country? Is the government and or its agencies encouraging double or multiple standards?” he asked.
Babalola raised some pertinent questions about the essence of reducing JAMB cut-off marks for admission to as low as 120 for universities and 100 for polytechnics, monotechnics and colleges of education.
“Is the reduction a deliberate ploy to make things worse?” he asked.
Babalola said those behind the reduction should be aware that even candidates who pass JAMB at 180 and above still find it difficult and tasking to secure admission into Nigerian universities because there are more qualified candidates than the spaces available and because of paucity of facilities in the exiting universities.
He said: “It must be appreciated that even the former 180 cut-off mark is less than 50 per cent of the total JAMB marks. As I said earlier, a minimum of 50 per cent was regarded and acknowledged as pass mark in Elementary Schools in those days and now JAMB is recommending 120, a mere 30 per cent of the total score of 400.
“In our university here, Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) the minimum JAMB score we take for Law and Medicine is 240 and this could even be higher in some of the first generation universities such as the University of Lagos, University of Ibadan, and Obafemi Awolowo University. In the University of Lagos, for instance, where I was Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council for seven years, no candidate would be admitted to study Medicine with less than 270 marks.
“As a stakeholder in the education sector, I enjoyed good and quality primary school education when the pass mark was a minimum of 50 per cent. I am, therefore, worried and curious that this far-reaching decision could be taken without due consideration for its implication on the quality of education on offer in Nigerian tertiary institutions.”
However, the legal icon lauded the Federal Government’s last week shift of position to rescind its stand on Post-UTME screening in favour of the Senate of individual universities exercising its statutory powers of determining who qualifies to be admitted into the university.
