Technological advancement in Education sector

The Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB), finally transited from the Paper Pencil Test (PPT) and the Dual Based Test (DBT) to Computer Based Test (CBT) for students that wrote this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) held in Abuja and in other cities of Nigeria.

It did this with the help of a software, that performs core operational services like checking of candidates’ result, retrieval of registration number, result verification, checking of admission status, centre location.

They also made special arrangements for the visually impaired candidates, with the introduction of Braille technology for the blind.

In Abuja metropolis, there were six centres and two others located on the outskirt, some of these centres are accredited ICT-oriented organization like Chams City at Garki, Digital Bridge at Utako, Global Learning at Central Area, NEEDS, Anglican, and then the centres at Bwari and Gwagwalada outskirts.

These centres have two or three sessions depending on their capacities. Basically, each session have 30,000 candidates

Talking about challenges, a JAMB official in one of the centres who did not want her name mentioned, admitted that “the exam definitely posed a little challenge because it is technology-based.”

Apart from the issue of electric power fluctuation at Stella Maris centre which was quickly addressed by moving candidates to another centre, the CBT seemed to be a success as the students appeared to like it as it was just a click away.

A candidate, Olawole Dorcas, described it as, “very, very easy, you click the answer and that’s it,” another candidate, Shamsudeen Abdulahi, said: “The system is ok. I think it is a good design as there is no way you can giraffe for answers from your partner, cheat or make noise; you just face your work. ”

For Adonijah Dauda and Babalayo Joel, it is only those that are not computer-literate that will find CBT difficult,“it was not difficult,” they said. “It is just that some candidates did not understand it. All you have to do is log in your number and then start and end by reading and clicking.”

Candidates who had written JAMB before with the PPT system, said the CBT system is much better than the PPT, Emeka Acho, who wrote JAMB, two years ago, said: “JAMB CBT exam is better as there is no negative marking, also, there will be no case of missing script but the time allocated is little as once it elapses, that’s the end. The only advantage that PPT has over CBT is that you can quickly shade in your answers even when your time is up.”

Dr. Fabian Benjamin, JAMB’s Public Relations Officer applauded the success of the exam, “everything went well,” he said. “I rate the success 97%.” The examination lasted for 11 days, from 11th to 21st of March.

But people are still questioning the system asking about candidates from rural areas who do not know how to operate the computer, “if we don’t start now, when will we start?” Benjamin asked.

“Other nations have been doing computer-based tests as far back as 30 years and we are in 2015, and we are still talking about not knowing how to use computer and all that. We have to start now, so that we will get to somewhere. Whatever challenges we had this year, by the time we are doing it next year, there will be a tremendous improvement. What we are doing now is to reinforce the issue of the use of computer. By the time a school discovers that this is what we are doing, it will have no option than to begin to teach computer to its students and even have it. Most private schools use it and they are following the curriculum but some public schools are reluctant.”

Source: sunnewsonline