JAMB Plans To Introduce Life Skills, Critical Thinking Into UTME
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is considering plans to introduce life skills and critical thinking into the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) as part of efforts to broaden the assessment of candidates seeking admission into tertiary institutions.
The Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Segun Aina, disclosed this on Wednesday during an appearance on the Nigerian Television Authority’s Good Morning Nigeria programme, explaining that the proposed reforms would assess candidates beyond their knowledge of academic subjects.
Aina also clarified that a candidate’s UTME score should not be viewed solely as a measure of their knowledge but as an indication of their performance relative to other candidates in the same examination cycle.
“It is not how good you are that your JAMB score speaks to. It is more about how you rank against others,” he said.
The registrar explained that the interpretation of scores depended largely on the overall performance of candidates in a particular examination year, noting that a score considered high in one cycle might appear relatively low in another.
“If you are in a cohort of JAMB candidates where everybody scores above 300, then 299 will suddenly start to look like a very low score. So, we must put this thing in proper perspective,” he said.
On the proposed examination reforms, Aina said the board was exploring ways to incorporate life skills and critical thinking into the UTME to make the assessment more relevant to the demands of higher education and the competencies required beyond the classroom.
He disclosed that a committee comprising education stakeholders and experts had been established to develop recommendations on how the proposed skills could be assessed.
The committee is also expected to consider whether the competencies should be introduced as separate components of the examination or integrated into existing UTME subjects.
The proposed changes form part of efforts to review the examination framework and ensure that the assessment better reflects the abilities students need to succeed in higher institutions.
In a related development, Aina disclosed that JAMB had introduced measures to ease the difficulties candidates encounter when attempting to update their personal information on the board’s records.
He said candidates who had lost access to their registered telephone numbers or email addresses could now change them through the board’s established procedures.
The registrar also announced the introduction of a National Identification Number (NIN) alignment process, which enables candidates to update their personal details with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and subsequently align the information with their JAMB profiles.
“Before, you could not change your name or your date of birth on the JAMB profile,” Aina said, explaining that the new process was designed to assist candidates whose admission prospects had been affected by discrepancies in their personal records.
“Thousands of people were stuck. They completed their degrees; they couldn’t go to university because this wasn’t possible. It is now possible,” he added.
Aina urged candidates to visit JAMB’s official website and social media platforms for further information on the proposed examination reforms, the NIN alignment process and other services available to them.