The founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), Aare Afe Babalola, who is also a one time Pro-chancellor of the University of Lagos, an elder statesman and lawyer has condemned the move by the Federal Government to scrap post-UTME describing it as a “calamitous mistake.”
He expressed surprise over the fact that this decision was taken without duly considering the factors that necessitated the introduction of post-UTME.
He pointed out that in 2003, it was discovered that most of the candidates admitted into Nigerian universities through JAMB were academically deficient and unable to justify the high marks scored in JAMB examination.
According to him, the committee of pro-chancellors of Nigerian Universities met to address this ugly situation and advocated that JAMB be scrapped since its integrity has been called to question.
However, the government at that time decided to adopt a middle-ground by allowing JAMB to remain in charge of admission process and schools to conduct a screening exercise for candidates now known as post-UTME.
He further mentioned that post-UTME from inception has proved to be a veritable quality control measure going by the huge drop in all forms of malpractice and fraudulent activities in the admission process prior to its introduction.
He emphasized that every university has the right to screen candidates it wants to admit whether through written or unwritten method and sighted the case of Oxford university were every student applying to study law must as a requirement sit for the Law National Aptitude Test (LNAT), student applying for Biomedical Sciences must take Biomedical Admissions Test (BMAT) and any student applying for Chemistry must take Thinking Skills Assessment (TSA), while any one applying for Classics must take Classics Admission Test (CAT).
He however stated that universities should not use the exercise as a money-making venture but can charge Students for the cost of papers and other logistics.
