The new cutoff mark for entry into tertiary institutions announced on Tuesday by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has become a topic discourse.
According to news reports, JAMB and the Vice Chancellors of all Nigerian universities agreed that 120 should be the cut off mark for entrants into universities. For polytechnics and other institutions, it the mark was pegged at 100 minimum.
It has been difficult for many of us understanding the rationale behind the resolution reached by the authorities. For me, I had thought hypothetically that it was another attempt to increase the chances of admission for those from educationally disadvantaged areas in the Country.
We are not unfamiliar with situations where standards were lowered for admission into unity schools for certain students based on their states of origin.
Perhaps, it was because many candidates performed below expectation in the exams. Most of those I know of score above 250 marks. But this was an entirely computer-based exam written by many candidates who were perhaps seeing a computer for the first time.
Maybe our assumptions were wrong. It would be nice if JAMB could be giving the public a breakdown of candidates' performance as the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO) do every year to help us understand the extent of candidates' performances in the exams.
However, I learnt that the reason behind resorting to such a low mark was for the sake of 'equity'. An official present at the meeting pointed out that JAMB lamented situations whereby universities would publicly declare 200, for instance, as cut off mark but would still consider the candidate of one highly placed personal who scored lower than that for admission but would deny the son of a nobody admission even when that one scored above the required mark.
Sourced From: http://www.insidenaij.com.ng/2017/08/opinion-likely-effects-of-institutions.html?m=1