Oluwatobi Adu 
ABUJA, Nigeria – The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is reviewing the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) to determine whether its current format remains effective in identifying candidates most likely to succeed in tertiary education.
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Segun Aina, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja during the inauguration of a committee of education stakeholders and experts tasked with examining how life skills and critical thinking could be incorporated into the UTME.
Aina said the review was necessary because the examination format had remained largely unchanged for more than three decades.
He noted that candidates already undergo subject-based assessments through their O-Level examinations conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO).
“So, ours is a ranking task. It’s not necessarily to test your subject matter expertise. we feel for the UTME examination to be purely subject matter is a duplicity of effort of sorts,” Aina said.
“Are the methods that we are employing to check and predict who will do well in the university or the polytechnic or the college of education, are they still valid? Are they good enough?” he asked.
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, represented by the Technical Assistant to the Acting Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr. Oni Adedeji, said the proposed reform was consistent with efforts to improve assessment in the education sector.
Chairman of the committee, Prof. Boniface Nworgu of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, said the effectiveness of UTME should be assessed by its ability to identify candidates with strong prospects of succeeding in tertiary education.
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Hope Ajayi 
Korede Abdullah 