Nigeria's university entrance exam may soon look very different. The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is thinking about changing the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) so that it tests critical thinking and life skills, instead of only what students have memorised in class.
The board's Registrar, Professor Segun Aina, said the goal is to learn more than what candidates know. JAMB also wants to see how well they think, reason and use that knowledge to solve real-life problems.
Aina shared the plan on Wednesday while a guest on Good Morning Nigeria, a programme on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). He said the board is reviewing how it designs its exams so they fit the needs of education today.
To guide the process, JAMB has formed a committee of education experts and other stakeholders. The group will suggest how these skills can be measured. It will also decide whether they should form their own sections of the UTME or be woven into the current subjects.
If approved, the change would be a big step for university admissions in Nigeria, which have long depended on how well candidates perform in set school subjects.
Aina also used the interview to clear up a common misunderstanding about UTME scores. A score, he said, is not proof of how intelligent or academically strong a candidate is. The exam is mainly built to line up candidates from best to least performing, and each score only makes sense when set against how everyone else did that year.
"It is not how good you are that your JAMB score speaks to. It is more about how you rank against others," he said.
He offered an example. "If you are in a cohort of JAMB candidates where everybody scores above 300, then 299 will suddenly start to look like a very low score. So, we must put this thing in proper perspective," he said.
Put simply, a raw score and a candidate's place among other applicants are two different things. The difference matters because so many candidates compete for a limited number of places, and admission also depends on each institution's requirements and the spaces it has available.
The Registrar also announced new steps to help candidates who have struggled to update their details. Those who can no longer reach the phone number or email address they used to register can now change them, through procedures set by the board.
JAMB has also introduced a National Identification Number (NIN) alignment process. Candidates can first correct their personal details with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), then match their JAMB records to the updated information. The process is meant to help those whose mismatched details have blocked their admission plans.
"Before, you could not change your name or your date of birth on the JAMB profile," Aina said. "Thousands of people were stuck. They completed their degrees; they couldn't go to university because this wasn't possible. It is now possible."
The move is expected to bring relief to candidates whose education has been held up by errors or differences in their records.
Aina urged candidates to check JAMB's official website and social media pages for full details on the new procedures and other services.