The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has commenced moves to integrate life skills and critical thinking into the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), in a bid to make the examination more responsive to the changing demands of tertiary education.
Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Segun Aina, made this known on Wednesday in Abuja at the inauguration of a committee of education stakeholders and experts mandated to develop a framework for incorporating the skills into the UTME.
Aina explained that the proposed reform was necessary because the UTME primarily performs a ranking and selection function among candidates who already possess O-Level qualifications.
According to him, continuing to focus exclusively on subject-matter knowledge could amount to duplicating assessments already conducted by examination bodies such as the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO).
He said candidates seeking admission through UTME had already been assessed in various subject areas at the O-Level.
โSo ours is a ranking task. Itโs not necessarily to test your subject matter expertise. So we feel for the UTME examination to be purely subject matter is a duplicity of effort of sorts,โ he said.
The registrar said JAMB was therefore seeking ways of assessing skills that candidates would deploy in real-life situations, particularly their ability to think critically, reason and solve problems.
He stressed that the board also wanted to determine whether the current UTME format remained effective in predicting candidatesโ performance after admission into universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
โAre the methods that we are employing to check and predict who will do well in the university or the polytechnic or the college of education, are they still valid? Are they good enough?โ Aina asked.
He noted that the UTME format had remained largely unchanged for more than three decades, saying JAMB must continuously examine the relevance and effectiveness of its assessment methods.
โThe biggest room in the house is the room for improvement. So we want the committee to help us take a look at this,โ he said.
Aina said the committee was deliberately constituted with representatives from different segments of the education sector to ensure that the proposed reforms reflected the perspectives of stakeholders who would ultimately be affected by them.
โWe cannot be judges in our own matter. So we have assembled a team of stakeholders who are also experts in their own rights to join us in taking a look at this issue, to guide us and to make sure that any decision we take is one that is broadly acceptable to all the stakeholders who will be affected by these decisions,โ he said.
He described the assignment as a national responsibility and said the committee had been given an initial four-week period to examine the proposal from a conceptual perspective.
On the duration of the committeeโs assignment, Aina said: โTheyโve been given an initial time of four weeks to look into this.โ
Also speaking, the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, represented by the Technical Assistant to the Acting Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr Oni Adedeji, said the initiative was in line with ongoing efforts by the Federal Government to reform assessment across the education sector.
Alausa charged the committee to develop standardised, fair and transparent assessment modalities capable of measuring candidatesโ analytical, logical and verbal reasoning abilities beyond the recall of subject content.
He said the committee would also determine how the proposed components would be introduced into UTME, including whether they should be assessed as a separate standardised component or embedded within existing subjects.
The minister said the proposed reform was designed to create an assessment system that would measure not only what candidates know but also how effectively they could think, reason and solve problems.
โI strongly believe getting these rights will shape how Nigeria evaluates readiness for tertiary education now and in years to come,โ Alausa said.
He assured the committee of the ministryโs continued collaboration and support throughout the assignment.
The Chairman of the committee, Prof. Boniface Nworgu of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, said the effectiveness of UTME should ultimately be assessed by its ability to identify candidates with strong prospects of succeeding in tertiary education.
Nworgu explained that JAMB conducts a selection examination rather than a certificate examination, making the predictive validity of the test an important consideration.
โWhat JAMB is expected to do and what it is doing is to look at those measures that can help us to select the candidates that have the highest promise of succeeding in academic tasks at the tertiary education level,โ he said.
He said the validity of the UTME needed to be continuously reviewed because the curriculum and skills requirements of tertiary institutions had evolved considerably.
Nworgu cited the transition from the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) to the Core Curriculum and Minimum Academic Standards (CCMAS), saying the new curriculum places greater emphasis on skills and critical thinking.
โThe focus now is the area of skills and then critical thinking. So, what JAMB is trying to do is understandable from that perspective,โ he said.
He, however, said the committee would not restrict its recommendations to life skills and critical thinking if its deliberations revealed other measures capable of improving the predictive validity of UTME.
โIf in the course of our deliberations, we find out that there are other measures that can improve the predictive validity of the UTME, weโre certainly going to make appropriate recommendations,โ he said.
Nworgu also said the committee would insist on evidence in assessing whether any proposed changes to the examination achieved their intended objectives.
โWe are not going to make that mistake in this case,โ he said, stressing the need to establish a baseline against which the effectiveness of any modified UTME could be measured.
He added: โIf we have been using UTME for this number of years and we want to produce a modified UTME, so to speak, there must be evidence at the end of the day that this effort was on time, that we did not waste the taxpayersโ money doing what is beneficial to the society.โ
The committee comprises stakeholders drawn from universities, examination bodies, professional regulatory councils, studentsโ organisations, secondary schools and development organisations.
Members include Prof. Boniface Nworgu (University of Nigeria, Nsukka), chairman; Prof. M. Yakasai (Bayero University, Kano); Afolabi S. Imoukhuedะต; Prof. Idris Mohammed (Medical and Dental Council); Zakariyau Abdullahi (WAEC); Engr. Prof. Aaron Aboshio (Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria); Dr. Murtala Aliyu Sakwa (National Board for Technical Education); Prof. Duke Okoro (Council of Heads of Polytechnics and Colleges of Technology in Nigeria); and Jiya Umar Mohammed (All Nigerian Conference of Principals of Secondary Schools).
Others are Dr. Chima Egbujuo (Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council); Dr. Emmanuel Udontre (Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria); Salawudeen Kamorudeen Opeyemi (Senior Special Assistant to the President on Studentsโ Engagement); Catherine-Onyejeche Ibrahim (United Nations Development Programme); Dr. Fadipe E. Oladotun (Veterinary Council of Nigeria); Dr. Alimigbe Frances (Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria); Lawrence B. Aremu (National Commission for Colleges of Education); and Edidiong Lawrence Moses (Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigeria).
The remaining members are Prof. Raymond Emmanuel (National Business and Technical Examinations Board); Dr. Clinton (Nigerian Union of Teachers); Dr. Anthony Idoko (Pharmacy Council of Nigeria); Akinteye Babatunde Afeez (National Association of Nigerian Students); Dr. Esa Onoja (Council of Legal Education); Dr. Esther Mmeka (National Universities Commission); Dr. Yusuf Abbas Raji (National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies); Prof. Babawale T. Bello (University of Lagos); and Arc. Kayode (Architects Registration Council of Nigeria).
The committee is expected to submit its initial recommendations within four weeks, after which JAMB may proceed to a further stage involving assessment experts to develop or implement the details of any framework eventually adopted.
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