AN EVALUATION OF UI POST UTME MODEL

Olatunji Oladejo

It is the vision of the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, to be a world-class University for academic excellence geared towards meeting societal needs. To realize this vision, it means it must become more innovative and dynamic in the ways it interprets its vision and relates to its environment. Essentially, in the strategic direction of the University, it must embrace, introduce and enforce and sustain shifts in many aspects of its orientation, organization, academic programmes, operational methods as well as behaviour of stakeholders including leadership, management at all levels, admission of prospective students, among others.

Having borne the above in mind and in the report of the UI Vision for the 21^st Century Committee which one had the privilege of serving as Secretary under the Chairmanship of Professor Kayode Adesogan now retired, it was recommended, among others, that “while the University will continue to recognize results from JAMB, WAEC and other examining bodies, the University will, in addition to these, conducts its own screening procedure for all candidates who wish to come to UI to study. This will involve physically scrutinizing originals of their certificates, letters of attestation to their characters from their last two institutions and letters (written in their own handwriting) affirming that they have not had disciplinary cases in their former institutions. In addition to these, there will be an examination for each candidate which may be written or oral.”

Many Universities accepted this verdict. The UI Model which took off in 2005 ensure that the University does not admit more students than it can cope with taking into consideration the number of available staff and facilities on ground.

Initially, the UI Post Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination otherwise known as Post-UTME for undergraduate admissions involved a 60:40 graded combination of relevant subjects’ grades in ‘O’ Level results and cumulative score obtained from UME as the basis for inviting prospective candidates. The candidates were selected, using Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB)’s criteria of Merit, Locality and Educationally Less Disadvantaged States (ELDS), for the oral-UME exercise. Final selection of candidates for provisional admission was based on their performance at the post-UME exercise. A steady decline in withdrawal (from the University) was observed in 2004/05, 2005/06, 2007/08, 2008/09, 2009/10 academic sessions with a slight increase in 2010/2011 academic session.

Following Senate’s directive, a review of the “UI Model” led to the approval of ‘Short and Long term interventions’. This was to ensure the relevance/improvement of the “Model” and increasing access to a larger number of prospective candidates. The Short term intervention led to the standardization of the questions used for the oral interactive exercise (2010/2011 exercise). The long-term was implemented during the 2011/2012 exercise. The number of candidates (with JAMB score of 200 & above) who chose the University of Ibadan as their 1^st and/or 2^nd choice Most Preferred Institution were 25,513 and 21,333 respectively while the list for Direct Entry Admission had 2, 697 candidates.

The Senate’s approved modality was used for the 2011/2012 admissions exercise. This was unique since the “O’Level results and UTME score” were rated equally (that is, 50:50), unlike 60:40 used in previous exercises, and more candidates (200% of approved 1^st choice quota) were invited for the first-choice post-UTME exercise, using the usual JAMB criteria of Merit, Locality and ELDS. The extra 100% selected, were candidates missed out on “Locality” but with weighted scores not below the “locality cut-off point”. Unfortunately, the projected number of 3,983 could not be realized as only 2,912 candidates met the criteria above were invited for the first choice, on 29 August, 2011 Post-UTME.

The statistics of the 2011/2012 Post-UTME Admission Exercise.

For 2012/2013, UI requested all candidates who made the University their First and/or Second Choice Most Preferred Institution in the 2012/2013 UTME and scored 200 and above, to submit their biodata and SSCE WAEC/NECO or equivalent certificate results online for necessary processing. The basis for selecting candidates for interview was based on JAMB’s directive that the University should deviate from its usual 60-40 ratio two years ago. UI, therefore, used 50%:50% because JAMB felt the University was saying that its examination was inferior to WASCE by reducing its own score to 40%.”

It should be noted that the “60%-40%” results’ statistical analysis of the performance of UI students over a 5-year period showed that when the University examined what the candidates “came with” for the Post UTME; w­­­­hat was their JAMB score? What were their school certificate results? What were their results at the end of the 1^st year for 5 academic sessions in all academic programmes? A statistical model was arrived at, which was “50%-50% since JAMB insisted that we had to be law-abiding in 2011/2012 session. On this note, the University balanced everything. If JAMB scores were divided by “4”, it was regarded as percentage. As such, there was a very strong co-relation.

It must be stressed that the best students in UI over the last 15-20 years were those candidates who sat for school certificates the year they sat for JAMB; the year they got admitted to the University. Therefore, instead of waiting and processing 1^st choice and waiting for the first released results, the Senate of UI approved that the Admissions Office should process their results and used the JAMB score and increase access to candidates to come and write the examination. Whether they have school certificate results or not, those brilliant students who are awaiting 2012 SSCE results will not be put at a disadvantage!

It is pertinent to emphasize that the withdrawal from UI for 2009/2010, 2010/2011 moved from 66% to 80% of the total number of candidates who were asked to withdraw either from Faculties or the University. These were candidates who originally had come with the 60% we were initially using. In fact, these were candidates, who had been at home having severally repeated JAMB, not the firstly released, because their results were not released when UI was treating merit in those two years being referred to. This shows clearly that Nigerians are now trying as much as possible to make sure that they have “good school certificate results” to scale up their educational pursuits. At the end of the first year, it was discovered that for 2011/2012, 80% were candidates who came in purely on merit not those who are freshly released from school. So, the system has to move to ensure that the best crop of students is admitted in UI. The catchment area of UI is the whole of Nigeria. In this regard, UI is bringing candidates from all parts of Nigeria to write the examination.

Really, the process of inviting candidates for the 2012/2013 post-UTME exercise and admission exercise is merit-driven. Also, there had never been any complaint about our strict examination conditions on post UTME. UI will always sustain its integrity and salutary values. Truly, the model is a strategic reference point.

Olatunji Oladejo is the Director of Public Communication, University of Ibadan, Ibadan.