WHEN the Kogi State University, Anyigba, recently announced that this year’s post Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) was going to be online, parents, guardians and students were jolted with the innovation.
The Graphic which was inundated with phone calls regarding the issue went to town to feel the pulse of stakeholders.
Professor Theophilus Femi Balogun of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Lokoja allayed the fear being expressed by people outside the university system, describing online examination as the best, because it is easier and faster as students will be able to know their results in a short time.
He said, because of the advantage of the system, universities all over the world are now adopting the system both for their in-house students and students seeking admission into a university.
Professor Balogun who recounted the experience of NOUN students recently, pointed out, “They thought the system would be difficult but they found out that the contrary was the case”.
He explained that the issue of power interruption was adequately taken care of with the use of their stand-by electricity generating engine, which was put on shortly before every examination. “Students here are satisfied with the system because they are getting the desired result from it,” he remarked.
Also speaking in the same vein, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of Kogi State University, Anyigba, Mr. Joshua Edogbo who answered our reporter’s questions on telephone, contended that the online post UTME would curb instances of examination malpractices.
He stressed that it would be easy to administer, especially in terms of marking and compilation of results, saying that the marking would also be done online.
He explained that the fear of candidates from rural schools who may never have had exposure to the computer w