Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed a bill for second reading that will make Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) results valid for four years.
The proposed legislation, sponsored by Tolulope Akande-Sadipe and seeking to change the JAMB Act, 2021, is titled “A bill for act to amend the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (Establishment ETC Act, 2022) and other connected things.”
Leading the discussion, Sadipe stated that many students take the JAMB examination and get outstanding scores, but for one reason or another, they are not admitted for no fault of their own.
She claimed that these children and their parents were forced to endure the financial burden of taking the exam the following year.
According to her, one of the arguments that JAMB purportedly keeps bringing up in this respect is that it was for income generating.
“When you consider the number of students that apply for university admissions each year and the number who ultimately get in, it is clear that it is not their fault, so why should they be punished?”
“There are no such exams that are valid for one year anywhere in the globe; the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is valid forever.”
“Most institutions across the world value such tests for at least five years, but in Nigeria, JAMB is only good for one entry, and if you don’t get it, you retake it.”
“I believe this is completely unjust; there are many children in our country whose parents are battling to keep them in school.”
While participating in the discussion, Rep. Nkem Abonta (PDP-Abia) claimed that prolonging the validity of JAMB results will contradict the purpose of the tests and bring further problems.
In her submission, Rep. Chinyere Igwe (PDP-Rivers) argued that there was a distinction between an entry examination and a terminal examination. According to her, JAMB is an entry exam, not a terminal exam, as the bill’s proponents claim, and making the result valid for two years will lower the country’s educational standard.
In his remarks, Deputy Speaker Ahmed Wase forwarded the bill to the relevant House committees for further legislative action.