After last week’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, the Minister of Education, Mr. Adamu Adamu, announced the council’s decision to slash the examination fee charged by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) from N5,000 to N3,500. Similarly, the National Examination Council’s (NECO) Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) fee was reduced to N9, 850 from N11, 350. The cost of the Basic Education Certificate handled by NECO was also reduced from N5,000 to N4,000.
According to the minister, the slash was in reaction to the complaints and pleas by the parents of the affected candidates. He said: “Since the new administration came into office and with the change in management and prudent management by JAMB, we have been able to see that most of what was previously charged didn’t have to be, because a lot of it was siphoned by corrupt officials. So, in answer to the yearnings by parents, the president directed that we should look into the possibility of reducing the charges.” The minister added that it was not the aim of the administration to make money as such, since the respective examination bodies were not revenue-generating agencies. He pointed out that JAMB alone had raked in about N8 billion into the coffers of the government, and that the administration felt compelled to reduce the burden on parents.
Of course, reducing the cost of public examinations is not a bad thing. But the reasons given by the minister appear to be tepid since fixing the prices of the forms of central examination bodies like JAMB and NECO should ideally result from policy and not impulsive decisions. It will be interesting to find out how the initial prices of these forms were arrived at in the first instance. What informed the specific figures? If the JAMB fee was to cover the cost of the administration of the test, why was it fixed at N5000? And to be frank, the new price of N3,500 appears to be still steep, especially considering the annual staggering figures of the applicants. Instructively, the Education Minister admitted that the price of the JAMB form was slashed because of the revenue of N8 billion the government made this year as opposed to the previous years.
Ideally, the cost of public examinations should reflect the policy of the government, not the whims or gut feelings of certain persons in government. Otherwise, should Nigerians expect another whimsical change in the foreseeable future? Fixing the cost of public examinations ought to be preceded by a lot of reflections and research. The government should be able to provide logical and convincing reasons for its major decisions on public examinations. Although the new prices announced by the minister may attract the excited endorsement of the public, it fails the elementary test of a public policy in that the reasons given by the minister only appeal to the momentary gut feelings of the government of the day and not institutionalised policy.
Incidentally, some reporters asked the minister if the reduction in the prices of NECO/JAMB forms was a campaign gambit targeted at a gullible public and his response was equally tepid. Surely, a progressive administration with a clear vision about the mileage that it could draw from education could do better than the impulsive reduction. The government should get rid of its own inefficiency which obviously burdens it in policy formulation and implementation. Public examinations are social services, not tax collection or revenue generation exercises. The running of the bodies in charge of these examinations must therefore reflect a solid policy base at all times.
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