The lawmaker representing Ikwo/Ezza South federal constituency of Ebonyi State in the House of Representatives, Hon Chinedu Ogah, has alleged that the issues that affected the result of the just concluded Joint examination matriculation board (JAMB) in the Southeast and some part of the country was occasioned by a staff.
Ogah exonerated the JAMB registrar Prof Ishaq Oloyede from the errors and called for a review of the examination.
The lawmaker who disclosed this to journalists shortly after a state function in Abakaliki on Monday, in Ebonyi state capital, faulted the plan by West African Senior School Certificate Examination(WASSCE) to commence the use of Computer -Based Test(CBT) for candidates sitting for the examination.
Doubling as the Chairman, House Committee on Correctional Services,Ogah noted that Nigeria is not due for CBT and however urged federal government to provide ICT in all the primary and secondary schools across the country to enable students and pupils get acquainted with ICT and upgrade in it accordingly before they sit for examinations.
He said,”If you are proposing CBT for WASSCE, how do you combine titration when you are combining cabonoxide with Co2 to get a result?
“In Physics where you have equilibrium and you bring what is called load, fulcrum and force, how do you measure it by bringing the equation?
“In Mathematics when you have quadratic equation, algebraic, elimination by permutation method, how do you do that with ICT?
“There are certain things we will talk or plan and it cannot work. We are killing our education, we are killing our Science and Science is pure practical and our students need to know what practical is all about and that is the only thing that will help our education system and this country.
“My issue about our education system is collapse, they are rushing things. They are talking about ICT when they have no network. How do you think that students in rural communities that have not seen computer will know anything about ICT?
“When the issue came up in the National Assembly, I told them to tell federal government to provide ICT in all primary and secondary schools across the country and it should be a compulsory subject in all the schools so that pupils and students will get acquainted with ICT and upgrade in it and that’s the time they should be taking about using ICT or CBT for exams.
“What happened in JAMB issue was a pure sabotage from a staff of the examination body who doesn’t like South East. It was a staff that works in the ICT department of JAMB that did that manipulation. It was not the Registrar’s fault because the Registrar controls many things in that office and he may not have noticed what happened.
“We urge the Registrar to review the staff of JAMB and everything in the examination body. You quickly fixed examination without provision for materials for the candidates that are writing the exam in many places and many of them lost their lives trying to get to the examination centers”, he said.
