We are not lamenting on mass failure nor planning to change our already existing syllabus -Jamb

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has denied reports of mass failure in the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) across the country.

The examination body has also insisted that all UTME questions were based on the syllabus prescribed for the UTME saying that it was issued to candidates through the board’s Integrated Brochure and Syllabus System (IBASS), the CD which is given to candidates after completion of registration.

This disclosure was made available to the press by the Head, Public Affairs and Protocol of JAMB, Dr Fabian Benjamin, on Tuesday, June 29, 2021, in Abuja, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

JAMB’s Head of Public Affairs and Protocol,
Benjamin said that the news of mass failure was a fluke and a campaign by those whose source of illicit income had been blocked, saying the 2021 performance was not significantly different from those of previous years.

He said, “The board ordinarily would not have reacted to the half-truth being peddled by some disgruntled candidates, who were ill-prepared for the examination. And who, true to all expectations, performed below the expectations of their guardians, that the Board had based its questions on the wrong syllabus.

It is our belief that based on facts on the ground, every right-thinking Nigerian would question the 6,944,368 figure on which the 14 per cent “pass” is based. For instance, in the 2021 UTME, 1, 415,501 registered for both UTME/DE. Out of this figure, 1,340,003 candidates registered for UTME and 75, 498 registered for DE.’’

Benjamin pointed out that the examination body had to make the syllabus available to 3 platforms in order to ensure that it is accessible to all candidates sitting for the examinations.

He added, “The syllabus was issued to candidates through the board’s Integrated Brochure and Syllabus System (IBASS), the CD which is given to candidates after completion of registration.

It is not automatic that the NECO/WAEC syllabus should transform into JAMB’s otherwise there would not have been a need for a separate syllabus for the UTME.”
He said that a total number of 1,300,722 candidates took the UTME with 78,389 candidates reported to be absent.