JAMB to give candidates "free" marks starting from 2020 UTME exam

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has adopted a new "score standardization" policy which makes sure that no candidate who sat for the UTME exam can score zero in the exam. According to JAMB, the score standardization policy means that all candidates, who are registered for the exam, will be awarded a score for each subject, meaning there would be no room for zero scores. Also, candidates who did not attempt any question or who did not get any answer correctly were also captured under the policy and would be awarded a "common scale with uniform metric" “The adoption of the score standardisation is a technical procedure for transforming candidates ’ raw scores in the different subjects taken by each candidate to a common scale with uniform metric or units , which is the globally accepted procedure.

“The general public hardly understands nor appreciates why scores should be transformed and this has been generating controversies and throwing up all sorts of unfounded arguments. It is to be noted that some poorly educated professionals consider the transformation of scores as an arbitrary allocation of unmerited scores. “The issue has been compounded by candidates whose scores of zero were transformed alongside other candidates’ scores of above zero. Transformation is generally across board and was not focused on individual candidates. “Candidates with zero scores include those whose attempts earned them zero because they did not get any answer correct ; those who mischievously did not attempt any question throughout the course of the examination as well as those who were absent from examination.”

via punchng