JAMB And The Burden Of National Entry Points: Reform, Not Abolition

There comes a time in the life of every institution, just as it is with the individual, when the weight of its failures threatens to eclipse the nobility of its founding vision – it’s raison d’etre. The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) of Nigeria, once envisioned as a unifying compass to harmonize tertiary education entry across Nigeria, now finds itself on trial – not just in the court of public opinion, but in the ethical tribunals of conscience, fairness, and national trust – and this is not the first time.

The recent, painful death of a female candidate – a victim not merely of circumstance, but of systemic failure – has reawakened old wounds and deepened national skepticism. It has sparked calls for the scrapping of JAMB altogether, with many citing the rise of post-UTME assessments as a vote of no confidence in the Board’s competence. These are legitimate anxieties. Yet, they must not blind us to the bigger picture.

We must separate institutional dysfunction from institutional essence.

JAMB is not inherently the problem; its management, implementation modalities, and responsiveness to contemporary educational demands are. We must resist the populist urge to demolish that which merely needs to be reengineered. To discard JAMB is to risk balkanizing our admission system into a wild cacophony of unequal access, contradictory standards, and regional exclusions. It is to return to the era when nepotism, tribalism, and institutional isolation shaped admissions more than merit or fairness.

What we need is not destruction, but reconstruction – a re-effectuation of JAMB’s original mandate within the framework of 21st-century realities.

Let us reimagine JAMB as:

1. A transparent entry standard regulator – not a cumbersome gatekeeper, but a strategic coordinator ensuring a minimum national standard, while allowing universities to fine-tune selection based on their academic vision and specialisations. This is not far from existing reality.

2. A technological innovator – no longer plagued by connectivity failures, poorly maintained CBT centers, or opaque result dissemination processes, but driven by blockchain authentication, biometric verification, and intelligent-enhanced integrity protocols.

3. A human-centred institution – where the candidate is not just a file on the CAPS or a number, but a person. One whose safety, mental health, and sense of dignity are protected throughout the examination process.

Yes, the current system must be reworked – but not with the hammer of demolition. Instead, let us apply the scalpel of reform.

The post-UTME process, often cited as evidence of JAMB’s redundancy, is itself a symptom of a deeper disease: the erosion of trust in national testing mechanisms. Rather than abolish JAMB, we must restore it to health – legislate higher accountability, invest in its integrity systems, decentralize its operations, and introduce periodic peer reviews involving universities, other tertiary educational institutions, professional certification bodies, the civil society, and international education quality bodies.

We must also move towards contextual admissions, where JAMB results are seen not as final verdicts, but as contributory indicators – alongside school-leaving performance, special talents, and institutional requirements.

As I have always maintained in my educational philosophy: The strength of a nation lies not in how often it breaks its institutions, but in how boldly it redeems them.

The young girl who lost her life must not die in vain. Her memory must become the altar on which we consecrate a new JAMB – smarter, safer, more just. Let that be our tribute to her. Let reform, not revenge, be our resolve.

Keep JAMB. Reform it. Humanise it. Digitise it. And let the dream of equal access to higher learning be not a slogan, but a lived reality.