Controversy has continued to trail the results of the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB). In a recent development, educationists and parents have demanded a remark or outright cancellation of the examination to pave way for a fresh exercise.

Reacting to this, the National President, Association of Formidable Educational Development (AFED), otherwise called low-profile schools, Mr Orji Kanu, said this year’s examination should not have taken place considering the backlog of those who are already qualified for the available little spaces existing in universities.

He alleged that mass failure of candidates might be a deliberate ploy by the examination body to give room to only a few prospective students to join those already on queue from last year’s examination; adding that it seems JAMB is more focused on revenue drive rather than its primary responsibility of selecting qualified candidates who can fill few spaces available in our institutions

Another educationist, Sammy Ndubuisi, urged JAMB  to undertake a holistic review of the exercise to unravel the cause of the mass failure, whether human, programming or some other scientific error.

He stated that if a majority of candidates are affected, drastic measures have to be taken, including re-marking or re-running the tests, at no cost to the candidates. 

Similarly, Association of Tutorial School Operators (ATSO) has described this year’s UTME as the worst in recent years. The group lamented that the examination was marred by irregularities, including unnecessary frustration of candidates, extortion, computer malfunction, multiple results and subjecting candidates to danger and risk.

Speaking at the annual review of public examinations, the association, led by Mr Dotun Sodunke, said considering the plethora of errors in the initial results released and subsequent mass failure, it is most likely that the software used in marking the script malfunctioned.

Sodunke recalled that a similar situation played out in 2013/2014 during the tenure of Prof Dibu Ojerinde, when JAMB had to add 40 marks to the score of some science students after results had been released.