Category: Saturday Magazine

Being first or pioneering new ideas, either alone or as a team player in a group of people sharing a passion, is f a s t becoming second nature for Professor Dibu Ojerinde. Besides being the first to occupy a Chair in Tests and Measurement, he was the pioneer Director, Monitoring and Evaluation, National Primary Education Commission (NPEC), first Registrar/Chief Executive at the National Examinations Council (NECO) and the first Registrar/Chief Executive, Joint Admission Matriculations Board (JAMB) to introduce online application in the conduct of examinations in Nigeria. In this interview with Adetutu Audu, Ojerinde bared his minds on new developments in JAMB. Excerpts

Why E-testing?

The internet age has come to stay with us, hence as actors in the new age, you cannot afford to stay on the fence, you must be prepared to join the train or else you’ll be left behind. The programme was designed to migrate candidates from the use of paper and pencil in examinations to full usage of computers. Candidates must know how to use the computer before the full adoption of the system in 2015. One of the benefits of the innovation is that candidates will receive their results 30 minutes after the examination.

It would also eliminate cases of incomplete results or result blackout and it will ensure prompt delivery of raw scores and will also check examination malpractices. We went out to six different centres to test if it would work. We were at the University of Ilorin, University of Lagos, Abuja and Rivers State University of Technology, Port Harcourt. From our office, we sent questions straight and it took them seven minutes to get them. From JAMB office, Bwari to anywhere in the world, seven minutes you get the questions and they were downloaded. We had about 600 candidates that day. I don’t want to discuss the issue of saboteurs, but whether we like it or not we have local and international saboteurs. But we are making efforts to block them. If you go to Rivers State University of Technology, everything is internet based. They operate paperless world.

How credible are the people behind the system?

The last seminar we had, we asked ourselves what are those things that could fail? We say light and we said the alternative is back-up generator and for computers we said UPS. And I am sure all these can’t fail at the same time. Within three and half hours, it is not likely that all these things go wrong.

One of the advantages of Computer Based Tests (CBT) is to guard against manipulation and the JAMB e-testing is going on as planned. We have about 77 centres where the CBT will hold.

This year, we are no stranger to the system. Over one million candidates have registered for the 2013 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UMTE) and more than 500,000 are still expected to register. The CBT is not compulsory as candidates have a choice to choose either the paper/ pencil testing or the dual based testing, where candidates would read the questions on the computer and answer on the paper with a pencil.

By 2015, the CBT will become mandatory for all candidates. Out of the one million that have registered so far, only about 4,000 registered for CBT. The idea of CBT is that after 30minutes of the examination, a graphical result will be sent to the candidates’ mobile phones, while specific scores will be sent within four days. The results will show the subjects passed averagely by the candidates which is 50 percent and 59 above average 60 and above. Below average are 49.

Those who have been able to fill their forms online are having difficulties; they were not able to thumbprint or upload photographs. Even the café attendants were complaining. How is JAMB going to handle that?

I can boldly tell you that we have registered over one million candidates. We started late last year. Let me tell you some of the things that can lead to the difficulties. For instance, cybercafés are accredited by us because of our previous experience and cheating tendencies of these cafes. About two years ago, 12 candidates ran into a centre with their slips that they wanted to do the exam in Abuja; they went to the centre allocated to them and found that other people were sitting on their seats. And they ran to where I was, journalists were also there. When they checked the details biometric, we discovered that those who were there before were the original owners of the seats. Those 12 people were cheated by a particular cybercafé. And we asked them where they registered, they mentioned the place and I told them to go back and collect their money. So we decided to be accrediting cafes to forestall such in future. If a candidate gets to a cafe, he should ask if it is accredited. If they do, there is a code, before now we can even register in the comfort of our homes and schools. But you have to have a code now. Those people who have problems, possibly the café are not recognised by JAMB. Without code, they cannot access our site to register.

Some of the cafes have limited bandwidth and wait till night when the narrow bandwidth will be fast. We have seen people who are male and were registered as female. Ogunrinde was registered as Ojerinde. To be frank, cybercafés are part of our problems and we cannot do the registration alone. Our bandwidths have been designed in such a way that it expands as candidates registered. Some people used their toes instead of fingerprints. We have had cases of people coming to the centre without their documents, we asked them to thumb print, once their pictures come up, and they can write the examination. But without that I am sorry.

I can’t say it can’t go wrong. But practice makes perfect. We have done these three or four times before the end of the year, and we are going to try it again in February. We are working with a high internet service provider.

You are the current President of International Association for Education Assessment (IAEA). What function does it perform?

It is an association made up of examination bodies all over the world, ETS – Educational Testing Service is a member, Cambridge in the UK is also a member, the exam body in Netherlands is also a member, in fact all the reputable exam bodies you can think of all over the world are members of the association. It is a body of professionals in testing, measurement, evaluation and in public examinations. In particular we rub minds together, think together to find a way of doing things better. When you learn from a particular group, you go and implement in your own country. I have been a member of the organisation since 1978 as a student in the United States of America. I joined as a student. I have worked with them and they have identified and come to value my contributions to testing and other areas and this was why they made me President. For example, it is under my leadership that UNESCO took up the sponsorship of some programmes in Africa and I was able to attract their sponsorship to Nigeria.

You have been in JAMB for some years now. What have been your achievements so far?

Well, we have done a lot; I have been able to put up a computer building in JAMB, which was not there when I came in. Knowing the importance of Information Technology to an organisation like JAMB, we have also equipped it with modern facilities, scanners, and everything required that today we can say it’s the best in the country. We had only five scanners then, today we have over 30 scanners, that is why you do exams today in JAMB and, like magic, in five or six days the results are out. You know the reverse was the case before now.

In terms of construction, our Test Development building is now there, it was not there before. We furnished and generally renovated the headquarter building. Worthy of note also is the fact that since the inception of JAMB, it had no office anywhere in Nigeria outside the Headquarters in Bwari, today we have within this period built about six offices wholly owned by JAMB and we are still counting. There are now JAMB offices in Jigawa, Oyo, Kwara, Delta, Ekiti and Niger; this completes Phase 1 of our expansion plan. Now we are embarking on Phase 2, and we intend to do over ten offices also. The issue of training is no longer a joke in JAMB. Within the past two months, 16 staff have gone to Netherlands for Item Response Theory Training and that’s what we want to deliver to Africa.

We’ve started using the civil defence and other para-military agencies for our exams and, I tell you, that it has helped in no small measure to curtail malpractices. We also now use the Biometric data capturing system; it is not only for candidates but for staff. When you resume work you thumbprint and when going, you do the same. By that, the time you came in and went out is recorded. So, we can identify those who don’t come to office, those who come late, and at the end of the month we print out and keep for use for staff upgrading.

Some people are still criticising the Unified Exam System you introduced. What will you say about it?

It is ignorance. Now all the candidates who sit for exams have the same background; all of them went through the same secondary school system and possess SSCE. In fact, English and Mathematics are requirements, so why wouldn’t they write the same exams? Also, can we reduce the cost of testing them? Yes we can, but the income of JAMB has reduced as a result of the unification, yet we say just pay for one exam and have a choice of six institutions; two Universities, two Polytechnics and two Colleges of Education. Don’t forget that before now, students would go and write separately for universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education, now we say reduce the cost on your parents, just write one exam and you have six choices to make. The Polytechnics and Colleges of Education love it and I know it is the best for the country.

Universities are conducting post UTME exams and are arguing that it is UTME that should give way for post –UTME and not the reverse..?

It’s wrong. If they know the reason JAMB was set up, they wouldn’t say this. JAMB was set up to bridge gaps. It has a unifying role it plays in Nigeria. If you localise it, as they now say, some people will remain educationally backward. I know that those who call for the scrapping of JAMB never mean well for Nigeria. Even in the United Kingdom, you have what is called University and College Admissions Service (UCAS), it’s a clearance body like JAMB. Even with their level of development, they have not scrapped the body. The same goes for Turkey and countless countries with peculiar circumstances like ours. Those who established JAMB knew why they did it and I think it is in meeting that desire they so did. Look at the dichotomy between polytechnic and university graduates today, which is very unnecessary.

It is easy for you to release results these days, but that also comes with problems like missing results and other issues. What are you doing about this?

We release results on time because we have engaged technology and that is what is helping us. The days of releasing results after three months are gone. Last year alone, we had about 82,000 candidates who had missing results. Instead of four, they got three, or two or one, depending on the shading patterns. Candidates who don’t follow instructions are likely to fail exams, we are not magicians, what you feed the computer with is what you get out of it. They flout instructions and that is the problem.

You have reduced examination cheating to a bearable minimum. How did you do it?

When I came in 2007, we had 15.7% cheats, it has reduced to1.67% in the last exam. The scanner is there at the gate to screen out handsets, the Biometric system also came to our rescue. We even capture the pupil of your eyes and then the thumbprint that brings out your picture and so it’s no longer easy to come and cheat. I must not forget the marvellous work members of the Civil Defence and other security agencies are doing for us, we now also use only fenced centres for exams so that we can restrict movement in and out of exam centres.

There is this lingering crisis over the change of University of Lagos (UNILAG) to Moshood Abiola University of Lagos (MAULAG). Which does JAMB recognise?

For now we recognise UNILAG.