FORMER NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY VICE CHANCELLOR, IBIDAPO-OBE, OTHERS FAULT JAMB 120 CUT OFF MARKS
Former Vice-Chancellor University of Lagos, Prof Oye Ibidapo-Obe on Friday alongside other stakeholders have faulted the Joint Admission Matriculation Board,(JAMB), pronouncement of 120 score as cut off mark for admission to universities.
This was made clear during in a group discussions on penpushing platform,a social media with observation that a score of 120 out of 400 was a woeful failure,which should not under any guise be a national standard.
‘ Gentlemen Penpushing Platform. I would have been more comfortable if JAMB had announced that there is no more national cut off point. A score of 120 out of 400 is a woeful failure and that should not under any guise be a national standard. It gives ‘filip’ to those who insist that national educational standard has fallen very low’,Ibidapo-Obe posited.
Also in her own contribution, Vice-Chancellor Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijebu-Ode,Prof Oluyemisi Obilade who disclosed that, she was in attendance at the meeting where the decision took place and all vice-chancellors made their positions clear as to their individual university cut off marks.
Her words ‘I attended as the VC of TASUED. All the VCs there made our positions clear as to our individual university cut off marks. However, some university, which shall remain unnamed, went to 120. May I respectfully submit that that university was exercising it’s fundamental right. Like it or not’.
‘Sirs and Mas, the entry requirements for an ivy league university like Harvard is not the same as that of a community college. We are getting to a level on this country where proper evaluation will be done by parents and employers before interfacing with the products of our universities’,Obilade added.
She further stated ‘This is what is done in saner climes. We provided information as requested on our cut off as well as some of this background. However, my submission is not a radical departure from my position. Integrity is important to me as an academic’.
‘I just did not think it proper for all of us at the meeting as VCs,Rectors,Provosts and Registrars to sit back and watch Prof Oloyede being bashed at the court of public opinion without clarifying issues. Good day my learned professionals on this platform. I rest my case’,she posited
Another member of the platform,Segun Alabi in his own submission, wrote, ‘for me, I think the decision might be to make public universities more attractive just as Rwanda has successively done, thereby making people to look less in the direction of private universities, the government also will be forced to pay more attention to education and fund it appropriately’.
‘Secondly, it might be a way of curbing examination malpractice which has advanced to its peak. A serious candidate will see 120 marks as obtainable without any “help” and jettison any idea of involving him/herself in malpractice’,Alabi stated.
‘Moreover, JAMB has said that the 120 marks is just the benchmark, institutions can raise their cut off above but not below it. Raising it above has no limit. It’s only Prof Oloyede as the Registrar that can tell the actual reason(s) behind the decision’,he stated.
A legal practitioner on the platform, Benjamin Ogunmodede said, “I am equally shell-shocked too, as to the absymally low cut-off mark for JAMB’s Admission for this current Academic Year? Why now? Our Great Prof. Oloyede, your reputation for more than this or above this?’
‘ This low mark should be rejected by all lovers of qualitative Education in Nigeria. Let the mediocres admit their people with 1%.because this is mediocres’decision.No wonder they left a Professor as substantive Minister of Education in the 1st.place and made him a “junior”Minister. You can now see the reason why we need restructuring now,now. God deliver Nigeria!’,the veteran lawyer stated
Also reacting, Funke Fadugba, a veteran journalist and educationist posited that the Jamb boss, was not being forced to take the decision as being made to beieve in some quarters, but said he should learn to say no instead of compromising.
‘ With respect who is forcing him? If he had built a name before now, at his age, what is left is for him to protect same. Nigerians should learn to say NO instead of compromising. Who were the stakeholders that JAMB said agreed to the slash? Asuu,Nasu, parents or the protesting students? Is it not better to remain an ordinary citizen than get a position that will call ones reputation to question ?’
Hon Dapo Adeyemi, a politician in his own reaction wrote, ‘I think he’s being “forced” to adopt the cut off mark to satisfy students from the educationally disadvantaged areas. How could one justify 120/400 as a pass mark?’
In his own contribution, Eddy Ademosu posited, ‘The JAMB cut off marks should naturally be a collective/joint decision of critical stakeholders including the Ministry of Education’.
‘Ironically, the fall out of the disastrous “low cut off marks” is a baby of Prof Oloyede’s JAMB to bear for now. It was one of the abysmal decisions that any seasoned technocrat would take, following series of its rejection by the primary stakeholders’,he said.
‘Ask Prof in private what informed such a retrogressive policy, he would give loads of reasons that partly will bother on the balancing act of the political dichotomy of the Nation… a section is craving for qualitative and excellence in its educational pursuits, a section would not mind contending with its mediocrity. Yet, in our clime, the mediocres laud it over the informed, the knowledgeable and progressives. We are a product of our political antecedents….’
In his own contribution, Abiola Adegbepa declared that,’I believe the VCs and other stakeholders were present in the meeting where the cut-off mark decision was taken. They should have objected at that point. Why now?’
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
