The Registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, on Sunday blamed the poor performance of candidates in this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Oloyede, who featured on the Nigerian Television Authority’s programme, “Weekend File,” said 99.65 percent scored 120 marks and above out of the possible 400 this year.
He added that this was lower than 99.80 percent that got same in 2020.
The JAMB registrar concluded that candidates performed poorly this year than in 2018.
He insisted that the COVID-19 pandemic affected the smooth running of the academic calendar.
Oloyede said: “In 2018, it was 99.99 percent but in 2019 it dropped to 99.92 percent.
“Also, in 2020, 69.82 percent of the total candidates who sat the UTME scored 160 and above but in 2021, it reduced to 65.62 percent.
“But this is expected. In Nigeria, we think we do not live in a global community. All informed education experts understand why it is so. They knew the point at which we were in the academic calendar before the examination was taken in 2020 and in 2021.
“Last year, when they took the examination, the students had gone far in their syllabus. But this year, they suffered incomplete academic sessions. They had to cope with emergency online lessons and even many other disturbances like insecurity.”
