Calls for reinvestment of exam fee proceeds into HE

Academics and other higher education stakeholders are calling for the reinvestment into the under-funded higher education sector of monies received by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for the sale of application forms for the common entrance examination or Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

JAMB is the only legal agency authorised to conduct annual examinations which assess a candidate’s competence to enter Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.

A Nigerian Guardian investigation has revealed that over the past three years JAMB has harvested NGN18.5 billion (US$51 million) from the sale of forms to a total of 4.9 million candidates. Over the same period (2017-19), the agency was allocated a statutory budget of NGN2 billion per annum.

According to the Guardian article, candidates who sat for the UTME between 2017 and 2018 paid NGN5,000 each as a registration fee, but following a public outcry, the government reduced it to NGN3,500 this year.

The Guardian said Section 22 (2) of the Fiscal Responsibility Act mandates agencies such as JAMB, the West African Examinations Council, the National Examination Council, the national port agency and others to remit 80% of their operating surplus into the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

Concerns from sector

The situation has drawn concerned responses from the academic community.

“The same law did not explicitly stipulate that the forms should be sold and at this specific amount to candidates sitting for this common entrance examination. This whole idea of selling this form is purely an administrative policy of JAMB because this agency has an annual budget approved by relevant organs of the state for its annual examination. The issue is that these fees should not be sent to the government’s treasury,” said a former Nigerian vice-chancellor who requested anonymity.

Some stakeholders are of the opinion that this revenue should be invested into the digitalisation of all examination centres because the UTME takes place online in real time and is held throughout Nigeria for at least one million candidates annually.

One such stakeholder is Professor Michael Faborode, executive secretary of the Association of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities. He said the proceeds should be deployed towards building more digital examination centres.

Examination centres

“The Ministry of Education, which is the supervisory agency of JAMB, should reinvest these proceeds in gradually building dedicated digital examination centres on some of the campuses. It is an investment that has multiple advantages for the candidates and the university campuses”, he declared.

Dr Jampalm Kenneth of the economics department at the University of Jos told University World News the law setting up JAMB precludes turning the agency into a money-making institution because it has a running budget to cater for its needs.

“The profit emanating from the sales of this form should be distributed and used for specific projects on all campuses. Alternatively, the proceeds should be distributed, to all universities on the basis of the number of students. The money must be attached to projects supervised by an independent committee of the federal government,” he said.

Professor Olusoga Sofola, acting vice-chancellor of Eko University of Medical and Health Sciences, Lagos, said the proceeds should go towards a national revolving loans scheme to assist poor students.

Student loans scheme

“JAMB should be empowered to create a tertiary education loan scheme from its accruals. The good thing is that all prospective students have a JAMB identification number. This can be a good instrument to track beneficiaries. The combination of this and the JAMB identification certificate will ensure the tracking of all loan recipients and repayment of the loan after graduation. The details of this scheme can be worked out by competent financial experts," he said.

Dr Oudus Argungun of the department of philosophy at Benue State University agreed, saying the proceeds should go to various universities with a view to assisting financially poor students. He told University World News it was important to understand the legally defined functions of JAMB and accused the agency, through its profit-making activities, of deviating from its core mission.

Professor Biodun Ogunyemi, national president of the Academic Staff Union Universities agreed, saying the agency was not conceived as “a profit-making venture”.

Government funding

“There is a more fundamental means of sustaining our tertiary institutions. Let us tell ourselves the home truth: the Nigerian government must make available enough funds to propel our institutions to cater for the needs of our country in a century governed by the knowledge industry. This is the time to take fundamental decisions or else we shall soon be made the laughing stock of Africa,” he said.

Ogunyemi called on the government to declare a state of emergency in education, especially its higher education component, arguing that the proceeds from JAMB are a mere drop in the ocean in relation to the real financial needs of the tertiary education system.

He said less that 9% of the current total budget is devoted to education and vocational training. “The only way out is to gradually increase the annual budget for education and vocational training to 26%, as recommended by UNESCO of which Nigeria is a member,” he said.