I don’t understand why some people buy their JAMB UTME scratch card in a particular state and are posted to another state to write the examination. I met two girls some days back and one told me he bought his scratch card in Makurdi,Benue state and her examination centre is in Akwa Ibom. The other girl bought her scratch card too in Makurdi and her examination centre is in Minna,Niger state. My friend told me the other day he will have to accompany his sister to Enugu to write the UTME. Another friend told me how they took shelter in a primary school when they went to write JAMB examination last year and some group of people came in the middle of the night robbed them of all their belongings. Just ask around your neighbourhood and you will get similar stories too,so I begin to ask why send kids so far away from home for the sake of JAMB examination?
The stupid excuse is that all the JAMB centres in the State are filled to capacity that’s why they send them to examination centres in other states. We all know that JAMB doesn’t build centres but use existing schools as examination centres,that makes me wonder why they prefer to send these kids to very far places to write exams when they can make things easier for candidates by establishing more centres in the state. It is not fair to unnecessarily add parents more expenses of transport,accommodation,feeding among others. It is heartless to send I child of between 16-18yrs to a place he has never been before to write examination especially in this period of insecurity all over the country.
JAMB can save parents all these troubles by establishing more centres in states but this is Nigeria and education is not suppose to be easy. I am almost convinced that the job of those in places of authority in Nigeria is to inflict suffering on the masses. I remember in those days you write JAMB exams and if you score above the cut-off mark then you go seek admission,later it changed that after scoring above the cut-off mark then you go write post-UME before you can get admission into the university and now they have added another burden,they are sending kids to strange places to write JAMB UTME. If government don’t want people to go to school they should come out clear. Instead of reducing the stress,they are making it more and more difficult for kids who want to get tertiary education. People sit with their laptops and get admission in any university of their choice anywhere in the world. The requirement is just O’level,but when you come to Nigeria you have to write WAEC/NECO(O’level),JAMB UTME and post-UME and maybe pay some bribe before you can get admission into any university.
Back to the issue of sending kids to strange places to write JAMB UTME,I feel it will not cost JAMB anything to make sure candidates write UTME in their preferred location as it use to be the case during our time. I expect the Parents and Teachers Association(PTA) to write to JAMB protesting against sending their kids to strange places to write exams but this is Nigeria,all we do is just complain in our sitting room and quickly adjust. Maybe in this era of social media,we will wait till people begin to complain that their children went to write JAMB exams in a strange place and never returned then they will think about changing the policy. It makes no sense sending kids to very far places to write JAMB examination with a useless excuse that examination centres in his/her state has been filled to capacity. JAMB have never built a single examination centre,they use existing schools as centres and if all centres are full,they can just use another school in the state as a centre. I hope JAMB have a rethink on this issue. If you ask me I will suggest JAMB should be scraped,it is a useless red tape that is making it too tedious to get admission into the university.
Bemdoo Hulugh is an active citizen from Makurdi
You can also follow me on twitter @bumy04
Comments