Senate has urged the Federal Ministry of Education to totally scrap post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
This followed the adoption of a motion sponsored by Umaru Kurfi, during its session on Tuesday.
Senate also urged the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to initiate a strategy to ensure the efficiency and integrity in the conduct of the pre-university examination.
The lawmakers lamented that the introduction of the post-UME examination has to a large extent, failed to remedy the problems associated with JAMB and as such, its continuous existence has posed more challenges for the Nigerian educational system.
Nigerian government had last year June stopped the examination.
But just over a year later, precisely in August, government lifted the ban.
“Cancellation of Post-UTME was a mistake,” Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, said at the 2017 Combined Policy Meetings on Admissions into Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria.
The meeting witnessed the announcement of JAMB minimum cut off marks for Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.
Adamu noted that ban imposed on the test caused irregularities by candidates and some institutions.
The minister, however, warned that fee for the post-UTME examination should not exceed N2000.
Adamu expressed satisfaction with the 2016 admission process which he said was a huge success, promising that it will even be better this year.
He said he was optimistic that a good number of candidates who sat for the 2017 UTME would gain admission into tertiary institution.
“Over 1.6 million candidates applied for degree courses, over 17,000 for ND as well as NCE,” he said
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