Peter Obi Raises Alarm Over Mass Failure in 2024 UTME, Calls for Urgent Action
The 2024 Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) UTME examination results have sparked widespread concern.
The massive failure rate demands urgent national attention.
Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, expressed his displeasure and worry over the state of Nigeria’s education sector, which lags behind countries like Iran, Bangladesh, and Egypt.
According to Obi, the recent JAMB UTME results reveal a troubling picture.
Only 0.5% of candidates scored 300 (75%) and above, while a staggering 76% scored below 200 (below 50%).
This highlights a significant gap in the quality of education provided nationwide.
Obi emphasized that education is a critical determinant of a nation’s progress on the Human Development Index (HDI), and Nigeria’s low HDI ranking of 164 out of 191 countries measured is a cause for concern.
He noted that despite claiming a literacy rate above 50%, Nigeria still lags behind comparable nations like Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and the Philippines, which have literacy rates above 70%.
The former governor pointed out that the consequences of poor performance in UTME include a limited number of students in universities.
Nigeria boasts only about 2 million full-time students, compared to Iran’s 8.2 million students in one university alone, Islamic Azad University, and Bangladesh’s over 2 million enrolled undergraduates in the National University of Bangladesh.
Obi called for urgent attention to be given to the education sector through aggressive investments, enhanced teacher training programs, and inclusive policies to address the systemic challenges in access to quality education, particularly in rural areas.