Why Post UME Must Be Scraped

This is not a response thread to Matolysis's, as I find his interesting but bereft of facts and also lacks awareness of the current tertiary admission process. No apologies. 


In our time it was strictly JAMB , if you score high, the higher your chances. Though there was malpractice then, JAMB has improved today especially with Computer based testing introduction.
I have wards who passed through the PUME process, which is significantly different from our time, for example, now many schools do not invite second choice for their screening and this is at variance with JAMB procedure. I am also an insider of sorts in the PUME process, and I'll use the Uniben scenario to give reasons why PUME is illegal and must be scrapped and defaulting schools prosecuted.


1. Post UME infringes on the sole power right of Jamb/UTME to give admissions. If you go through the JAMB act, it states that only the body has the right to conduct exams after charging fees, give undergraduate admissions, carryout placements in Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education. The universities are only supposed to send their requirements and preferences. The only exception is Post graduate admissions. But today Universities charge another amount , sometimes higher than JAMB's to conduct a parallel exam clearly defying the act, and give admissions using methods known to no one else. Uniben announced admission screening fee of 2000 and optional 1000 for past questions. But the reality is that, processing Uniben PUME/ ASE 2016 costs 3550. There is no option there, it just displays this amount and asks for MasterCard/Verve details. 



2. Secondly, Post UME is not transparent, it is even more fraud prone than JAMB. CBT has greatly reduced fraud, eliminating text message answers, buying answers online and impersonation. We now have biometric check in and check out, and CBT even makes the exam easier to invigilate as candidates are forced to stare at their screens and nothing else. A bonus is the availability of system calculator which wasn't totally available in the era of pencil test. 

BUT Pume is not even standardized, no preparation syllabus, some schools purposely set questions from A-Level just to be wicked and reduce number of successful people, others are known for giving very little time. And at the end they just send admission notification without pasting any list publicly and denying some admission even after surpassing the JAMB cutoff. 



3. Post UME introduces avenues for special candidates getting better courses. Special candidates refers to Royal father's recommendees , governor's candidates , VC's candidates, staff children and state of origin waivers etc These sets of people would score less than others and must get admitted , in many cases get their course of choice. 

In Uniben, to enter the college of Medicine, staff kids have their cutoff 10marks below regular cut off. So while a normal candidate aims for 70, they'll aim for 60. After taking the number of staff kids they want, the rest is filled with merit and government/royal candidates. And they all wrote the same JAMB. And the non staff candidates who fall under 60 < x < 70 are pushed to pharmacy and Life Sciences. 
That is one reason why they do not release cutoff before results, as they need to fit in their people first and adjust and that's why majority of the post ume era medical graduates are children of doctors and professors; Not because Medicine runs in their veins but because corruption runs instead.

There have also been reports of score upgrade in different schools including UNIBEN. 
And That is what gives rise to fraudsters, result checkers and predators who take advantage of candidates giving them fake admission. And the school waits till final year exams before publishing lists of fake students, meanwhile they've been collecting school fees from 100L.



4. Post UME destroys the JAMB score. For instance , someone who scored 280 in JAMB would have his score divided by 8 giving 35 and this will be added to half the PUME score. Another person who scored 240 would see his score transformed to 30.. only 5 marks difference. Assuming the second guy scores 70 in PUMe and the first guy scores 60, after dividing by two and adding to both Jamb scores, the two aggregate scores would be equal! The PUME now more weighted than JAMB. That's why it is possible to "pass 220 and not enter school". 

One would expect that the PUME score is the one divided and transformed after all it is the illegal exam!



5. PUME makes it difficult for Jamb to monitor admissions. An admission body that is relegated in its own game. One would expect that at this time parents would clamour for schools to start pasting their admission lists with raw scores attached. not a case of someone with 53 given Law and another person with 65 reading Foreign languages when they both put Law as first choice. 
Jamb is still a major exam that can never be replaced by the schemes of money-for-grades lecturers. 
Some may argue that Jamb scores are lower than students expect. This is because of Item Response Psychometric testing method, which is why people talk about negative marking etc. This method does not aggregate all the questions gotten correct, instead questions carry different marks depending on the set difficulty and depending on how many people answer that question. 
And PUME has seen schools flooded with kids without emotional intelligence and they can't fend for themselves, they rush through and pass out and it doesn't even seem like they went to school.

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By Unknown on Monday 20 June 2016