Two weeks ago, there were reports that the Federal Government was considering scrapping the National Examination Council (NECO) and the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination. Although the Federal Government is yet to make direct pronouncement on it, and has not given reasons for its proposed action, the reports have since kept many Nigerians in unconfortable suspense. In line with our policy to feel the pulse of Nigerians on contentious issues of national importance, our correspondent, Calista Ezeaku and photographer, Dele Obinna, went out to get people’s reactions on the proposed scrapping.

Excerpts.

Mr. Amadi Charles – School Principal.

In talking about the scrapping of NECO, we first of all have to look at the importance of that body, vis-à-vis the impact on the education of the masses. We are talking about bringing to the barest minimum illiteracy in this country and here is thinking about scrapping a body like NECO.

I think that the detrimental effect of such action on education of this country will be so grievous.

So, I’m thinking that WAEC as a body is popular, it’s known for the effectiveness, and efficiency in our educational system. But time has come that Nigeria should also look like other advanced or advancing countries that have most of these bodies assisting each other to improve the education system in their countries. So, if the Federal Government decides today to scrap NECO as a policy, who am I to say no. we are the implementers. We will only implement. But if you ask for my candid opinion, I would suggest that they should allow it and improve on the policies that established NECO.

Some people claim that NECO certificate has been bastardised and for that reason NECO should be scrapped. How on earth will somebody think of NECO certificate as being bastardised? WAEC has been in existence for many years, GCE London started even before the WAEC and it is still in existence. Now NECO came in just as a support to improve our system. So, I have not experienced the certificate of NECO being bastardized.

The only problem NECO has is that it is not internationally recognised. And so the certificate end up within Nigeria. The Federal Government would have tried their best to improve on NECO and also the standard so it could compete with other certificates which make candidates eligible to go for further studies abroad.

On the issue of UTME, before the establishment of UTME, there was a system that existed, people were going to universities. And the question is this, how were these people evaluated. What made them eligible? How were they examined, qualified to enter the universities? Yes, in the past, eligible candidates applied to the universities of their choice, then the universities set their exams and if you succeeded you would be admitted into these universities, until, may be they discovered some errors in that method, may be the universities bastardised the idea. And so the Federal Government came up with another body, having x-rayed the ideas and then set up the UTME and I don’t think that UTME has failed Nigerians. But one thing about Nigeria is that once a thing is established and a set of people feel they are not benefiting from it, they will start criticizing, they will start kicking against it and by the time you know it, once they are in power, they will scrap it, not minding the usefulness of that organisation.

So, I think the scrapping of UTME would have been a gradual thing if at-all the Federal Government needs to do that, because in scrapping UTME, it means that you would have set up a standard for the universities to follow for admissions. And the only body that has been doing it is the UTME and if you scrap it, what do you think will happen? Universities will bastardise admissions. You will begin to see people pay huge amount of money to gain admissions, enrich some pockets and possibly enrich some universities. That is the truth.

So, in my opinion, government should study the policies that brought up UTME. They should also properly supervise the activities of UTME so that the standard which is already set will be achieved and not just scrapping, scrapping, scrapping. Scrapping itself is also a way of dwindling the economy of this country. When you set up one thing today, invest on it, tomorrow you pull it out, that money is gone. Again, it is also going to create a lot of problem for the employees. Where will you put all the employees of the scrapped agencies or organs? That will increase the unemployment rate in the country and reduce the educational standard in the country.

Mr. Idagogo Ida Annie – Teacher.

In my opinion, I think there is no need to scrap UTME because it is an entrance examination into the universities. I feel that it gives a kind of uniformity in terms of the yardstick for the entrance examinations.

But if you allow individual universities to conduct entrance examination, there will be no uniformity and the standard may vary. Some schools may have high standard, some may have low standard, but with UTME, all the universities have equal entrance examination standard. We should also appreciate the effort being made by this body to ensure high standard. Before now, when candidates wrote UTME exams it took up to three or four weeks before the result would come out. But if you observe, in recent times, its no longer like that, under one week or a few days, the results are out. So there is a lot if improvement.

As for NECO, it is just a national examination conducted by Nigerian government, which is not accepted in other countries. So, there is no need for it if it is not accepted. You may have a child here who has NECO certificate and as a parent you may like the child to go to another country for further studies, and if the country does not accept NECO, it’s of no use. So, I think NECO should be scrapped and WAEC should be improved upon.

Chidi ThankGod – Student

I think NECO makes things easy for students. Before NECO was established, students were sitting for WAEC for several years without success. That made some people to abandon their academic pursuit. But with the establishment of NECO, things became easy for student. They now have the opportunity of sitting for two exams instead of only WAEC. If you sit for WAEC and you cannot make it, you try NECO. That does not mean that NECO exams are easier or the standard lower than WAEC but peoples’ luck are different. Some may find it difficult to make it in NECO, they may succeed in WAEC while it will be the other way for others. So, NECO should not be scrapped because it serves as an alternative to WAEC and makes things easier for students.

Again, the level of corruption in this country is so high that it is messing up a lot of things in this country. The negative impunities being injected into the academic sector increases day by day, starting from the top. So I think JAMB, UTME or whatever you call them are not really helping matters. A situation where students will be preparing to write JAMB exams and may be two or three weeks before the exams, the papers are leaked, tells a lot of story about that examination body. JAMB officials use these papers to make money. And that’s why some people who cannot even write their names score very high in UTME and would probably be offered admission in the universities while the best brains who wrote the JAMB exam without expo and could not score as high are denied admission.

So, I think the idea of allowing individual universities to conduct own entrance examinations is a welcome development. It will reduce the stress of writing JAMB and failing it every year. It will also minimize the number of exams that students are subjected to WAEC, NECO, JAMB, Post-UTME and others just to enable one gain admission into the university.

But I think a standard should be set for all the universities which must be adhered to. If other universities and tertiary institutions can key into the vision of Prof. Fakae of Rivers State University of Science and Technology of using computer for exams, it will reduce exam malpractices, raise the standard of education and ensure that the best are admitted into these institution irrespective of whether the person is from a poor or rich background.

If other higher institutions can adopt the method of using computers for exams without hacking into the code (which is what I was saying about the rate of corruption), it will really make things easy.

Mr. Godbless Nwala – Student

I’m of the opinion that NECO should be scraped. Any body that is not able to make his papers in WAEC will also not be able to make it in NECO. Again, scraping NECO will make students to actually sit up and study very well to pass WAEC exams since they know there is no other alternative.

On the issue of entrance examination into the universities, I think number of examinations that students are forced to take should be reduced. And if scrapping UTME and empowering individual universities to conduct entrance examinations will help us achieve that, then so be it.

Really, the idea of students writing UTME or JAMB and going to the universities to write Post-UME exams is frustrating, uneconomical, and stressful. And the way the post UME exams are conducted in some universities is not encouraging at all, only children of the rich who can pay some stipulated amount of money are given admission while the children of the poor are left out.

Let me also point out that because of level of corruption going on in JAMB, students don’t study for the exams because the papers will be in circulation weeks or days before the exams, so there is no need losing one’s sleep over it. But for post-UME exams, students take it more serious because there are no micro chips. You write the exam on your own.

So I’m of the opinion that NECO and UTME should be scrapped while WAEC and universities should take over the conduct of these exams. It will make the students to be more serious and raise our academic standard.

Miss Anabel Elvis – UTME Candidate.

The stress involved in writing UTME is much but I still prefer it to allowing universities to conduct their entrance examinations. If universities take over the responsibility of conducting admission examinations, admission would be for the highest bidder and not on merit.

As I said earlier, JAMB is really stressful, for instance, since morning, I’ve been moving round this campus (RSUST) looking for the exam centre without success. Nobody is even ready to direct you to the right place to go or provide answers to your questions but JAMB is still a preferred option.

It gives everybody a level playing ground. The intimidation and discrimination that will be associated with empowering the universities to admit students will be too much. They may end up admitting only indigenes and leave out the non-indigenes and all that.