JAMB: Why ruin schooling? University education should not be compulsory

by Alexander O. Onukwue

The Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) announced this week a new guideline for cut-off marks for admission of students into tertiary schools in Nigeria.

The lowering of the benchmarks for universities (now 120), polytechnics (110) and innovative enterprise institutions (100) has raised lots of dust in the media about what this says about the quality of education expected from the nation’s top institutions of learning. At a time when standards are continually improving across the globe, that Nigeria should choose to regress does betray that title of being the Giant of Africa.

The most plausible cause for undertaking a downward review of the standard for admissions should be to increase the chances for students from all (read some) parts of the country to attain higher education, but is that not the problem with this – the idea that every student must necessarily attain post-secondary education?

As much as it should be encouraged, it should always be an open conversation about the value and importance of post-secondary education. Universities are supposed to be places for research and advancement of theories in some particular fields of life, and not everyone is cut out for this endeavour. Not everyone who loves carpentry and has become good at it from tender years should be interested in getting a University degree.

Does a carpenter need to spend four years within the four walls of the University to become the best in upholstery? She or he could learn a lot about the mechanics of advanced tools but the talent will not be any more sharpened in the classroom by copying notes that it will be by actually spending time in a workshop.

In the age of the internet and free sources online, degrees are going to become more common place and the distinction will come with being able to be practical in application of theories.

For what it is worth, Nigeria’s over 140 universities are, at best, “degree awarding” institutions but the degree to which these awards translate to practical knowledge remains questionable. With YouTube, persons who have not gone to any degree institution could get very acquainted with a skill, becoming so good at it that their pay rolls are filled with degree holders.

There are success stories in our society who did not attain University degrees, and we acknowledge that it was not always their conscious choice not to get the degrees. However, what is obvious is that a good secondary education, combined with the learning of hard and soft skills would any successful man or woman make.

Lowering these JAMB cut-off marks to attract everyone to the Universities further makes it appear inevitable that one must attend; imagine the pressure on the child who chooses not to write JAMB now that it has been reduced to 120. When such person manages to read enough for 120 and passes, but does not get into the University whose post-UTME cut-off is 200, it would be one lost year, unless the parents have the funds to make a way when there is no way.

Such will be a lose lose for the country; not having the willing and able students in the Universities, and wasting the time of those who really do not want to be there, losing from the better use they could be to the society.

Rather than ruin the value and purpose of higher education, the JAMB should seek to improve the standards; lowering these cut-offs to nearly a quarter of the total amounts to quartering our education in comparison to what obtains globally.

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