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The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is planning to introduce life skills and critical thinking into the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) as part of efforts to improve how candidates are assessed for admission into tertiary institutions.
Registrar Segun Aina disclosed this on Wednesday during an appearance on NTA’s Good Morning Nigeria programme, saying the proposed changes would help evaluate candidates’ abilities beyond their knowledge of academic subjects.
Aina clarified that the UTME minimum entry score is not necessarily a measure of a candidate’s knowledge but a means of ranking them against peers.
“It is not how good you are that your JAMB score speaks to. It is more about how you rank against others,” he said, explaining that a score of 299 could appear low in a cycle where most candidates score above 300.
On the proposed reforms, Aina said a committee of education stakeholders and experts had been established to develop recommendations on how the skills could be assessed, including whether the competencies should be introduced as separate components or incorporated into existing UTME subjects.
He also announced measures to ease difficulties candidates face when updating personal information. Candidates who have lost access to their registered telephone numbers or email addresses can now change them, he said.
A new National Identification Number (NIN) alignment process also allows candidates to update their details with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and align the information with their JAMB profiles.
“Before, you could not change your name or your date of birth on the JAMB profile,” he said, adding that the new process was designed to help candidates whose admission plans had been affected by discrepancies in their records.
“Thousands of people were stuck. They completed their degrees; they couldn’t go to university because this wasn’t possible. It is now possible,” he added.
He urged candidates to visit JAMB’s official website and social media platforms for information on the new procedures.
