Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (Jamb), empowered to conduct matriculation examination for entry into all Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education in Nigeria made a whopping sum of N3.9 billion from sale of forms through the scratch cards.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek authoritatively gathered that students bought a total 1, 318, 014 forms at N3, 000 scratch cards each to be able to sit for the entrance examinations in Universities Matriculation Examination (UME) and Monetechnics, Polytechnics, and Colleges of Education (MPCE) across the country.
Further breakdown showed that 998,114 applicants registered for the UME which took place in the country in May 2008, while 320, 000 students signed for the MPCE examination for 2008 held on August 23.
Last year, 911,679 candidates completed and returned application forms for UME showing an increase of 86,435 over the figures of 2008 while additional 152,083 students sat for this year’s MPCE.
It would be recalled that in 2005 Jamb decided to introduce electronic examination payment system as part of repositioning the umpire for more global challenges and as part of measures aimed at sanitizing the conduct of examination in the country but what the promoters fail to take note of is the grim reality of how much hapless Nigerian students cough out every year to sit for these exams which students nowadays consider as most challenging.
The West African Examination Council and the National Examination Council have all embraced the scratch card regime to ease applicants the pains of undergoing rigorous processes in sitting for such exams.
For a student to register online for UME and MPCE, the student is to obtain a scratch card at the rate of three thousand naira which goes to Jamb while the additional three hundred naira serves as commission to the bank for the sale. It may also be interesting to note that the monies that accrue to Jamb from the purchases are tax free.
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