Abuja — The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has formally admitted that its Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) model, in use for more than three decades, no longer meets the demands of modern tertiary education. The agency has launched a fundamental reform that will introduce critical thinking and life skills into its assessment system — a move that could spell the end of the purely subject-based UTME.
JAMB Registrar, Professor Segun Aina, made the disclosure in Abuja during the inauguration of a committee tasked with developing a framework for integrating the new competency measures into the UTME.
Aina noted that the primary function of the UTME is to rank candidates who already hold O-Level certificates, not to re-validate their subject knowledge. “Our job is to rank; it is not necessarily to test your subject expertise,” he said. “So we believe that UTME, testing purely subject content, is, in a way, a duplication of effort.”
He further questioned the validity of the current testing method: “Is the method we use to predict who will do well in a university, polytechnic or college of education still valid? Is it good enough?”
The reform comes against the backdrop of an examination format that has remained largely unchanged for over thirty years, even as tertiary curricula have evolved significantly. Committee Chairman, Professor Boniface Nworgu of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, noted that university curricula have transitioned from the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) to the Core Curriculum and Minimum Academic Standards (CCMAS), with a much stronger emphasis on skills and critical thinking.
Representing the Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, the Technical Assistant to the Acting Permanent Secretary, Onyi Adedeji, said the initiative aligns with the Federal Government’s broader drive to reform the education assessment system. He charged the committee to develop a standardised, fair and transparent assessment method that measures candidates’ analytical, logical and verbal reasoning abilities — rather than mere recall of facts.
The committee has been given an initial four weeks to deliberate at the conceptual level and submit its recommendations. JAMB may thereafter engage assessment experts to work out the finer details of the framework. Its membership draws from universities, examination bodies, professional regulatory councils, secondary schools, student organisations and development agencies, including WAEC, NUC, NBTE, NANS and UNDP.
It is worth noting that JAMB has not announced a final implementation timeline, nor confirmed that the new assessment content will definitely feature in the next UTME cycle. The current effort remains at the review and recommendation stage.
