• Friday, March 29, 2024
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What JAMB and WAEC did to me

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Sleepless nights, tons of textbooks, extra classes, splitting headaches, these are the experiences of my lifestyle as a student preparing to take my final year examinations. The deafening scold of my teachers and parents became part of my dreams, “you must excel in both your WAEC and JAMB examinations to enable you to move on to the higher institution of your choice, and enroll in your choice course”.

This year’s exam came with several pieces of baggage. The general elections were postponed and held much later than originally planned causing major distortions in the education calendar. The elections originally scheduled for February 16, 2019, was moved to February 23, 2019, just a few hours before the time of the proposed election morning. This no doubt disrupted the academic timetable of most schools across the country.

My school, St Francis Catholic Secondary School (SFCSS) had to reschedule the remaining part of the school’s mock examinations for SS3 (final year students) due to the postponement. This unexpected development extended my long waiting game for D-Day: the examinations.

Eventually, the mock exams held successfully. After this we intensified preparations for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME), especially given it was a computer-based examination of four subjects that required your full attention.

Shortly after, there seemed to be hope in the horizon as the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) mock was announced to hold on April 1, 2019. Like many of my friends, I waited patiently to confirm that the International Fools Day exam date was not a practical joke, but indeed it was licit.

The UTME was rescheduled numerous times to the disadvantage of the candidates and parents who had to bear much social and financial burden – it was changed five times as rumoured on different social media platforms and websites. Each day we betted the likely date of UTME. While some of us wondered aloud, “Are the exams going to hold at all?”

Finally, the dates were released. It made my family and friends release a breath we did not know we had. Between May 11 to May 17, 2019, candidates were expected to check their UTME location and examination dates on the JAMB portal, a similar process took place during the period of the mock examinations.

Lo and behold, the big shocker! It was discovered that some of the specified dates for UTME clashed with some of the subjects of the WASSCE. According to the timetable, WASSCE candidates who were expected to write the subject, Animal Husbandry on 11 April by 9 am were also expected to sit for the UTME on the same day.

This initially seemed comic as many candidates wondered how they would split themselves into two on that day. People came up with different thoughts; skipping WASSCE for UTME? Skipping UTME for WASSCE or rushing through UTME to meet up with WASSCE on a chartered okada since the roads will be jammed with traffic.

As the days approached it became clear to us that the exam bodies had moved on. On April 12 2019, my Photography examination for WASSCE coincided with my UTME. Now I had to make a major decision to either skip the UTME or the WASSCE. The third alternative of combining both as some of my colleagues had planned could not apply to me as my UTME centre was in Eputu, a village in Ibeju-Lekki while my WASSCE venue was at my school in Idimu. Traffic could take nearly four hours between the two distances, on a good day.

It was indeed a sad day for me as a whirlwind of thoughts raced through my mind, “neither my parents nor school prepared me for this strange skill” I had muttered to myself.

The more shocking experience was that the JAMB officials denied claims that exam dates between JAMB and WASSCE clashed. According to many media reports, Head of Public Relations, JAMB, Dr. Fabian Benjamin said, “We (JAMB) have met with the WAEC management and WAEC has just given us an assurance that there is no clash; that people don’t just understand the modus operandi of the timetable especially as it affects the practicals.”

I sought advice from different quarters. My school’s counsellor suggested I skip the UTME and first secure my WASSCE papers. My parents said I should skip the Photography exam as UTME was more important. None of the options initially made sense to me as I had already written the alternative to practical exams for Photography; therefore, skipping the main exam will only fetch me the much-dreaded F9.

Although Photography did not have a direct bearing on my proposed course of study, my stake was quite high because of my growing interest in fashion. I sat back and began to lament about my unfortunate situation, wondering how I of all candidates became a guinea pig for WAEC and JAMB.

Several weeks after this harrowing experience, l look back now with my head and wonder, “Does the government really care about me”? If the activities of JAMB and WAEC were related to conducting national and local government elections, shouldn’t government have stepped in to address the problem or could it just be that the federal government was unaware of the clash? Could it even be that WAEC and JAMB were in a contest for supremacy at the expense of the students?

The most annoying experience was that I had about two weeks in between my WASSCE papers within the same period. Couldn’t JAMB and WAEC have shared information to reschedule the examinations of the affected students like me? Is our educational system so flawed that no one knows what tomorrow looks like?

In my gradual journey in seeking admission into university, the much talked about infamy of Nigeria’s education system is staring me in the face like a cracked mirror. With what WAEC and JAMB did to me, I daily wonder what other surprises the system holds for my generation.

 

CHIEMERIE EZURIKE

Ezurike writes from Lagos