CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
It is obvious globally that most candidates seeking admission to higher education prefer universities. The Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), however, will help recruit students to other kinds of institutions such as the Polytechnic and the College of Education.
Emodi (2010) observed that our higher educational institutions are confronted with the pressure of an increasing number of students demanding for access. She stressed that students compete for the limited places in our universities and that in all countries, admission into the top institutions have become more difficult to achieve. Emodi therefore noted that competition has always been a force in institutions of higher education and that in many ways, it can help to produce excellence and best performance.
Adedoyin (2009) however canvassed for the approval of more private tertiary institutions in Nigeria, adding that the number of Universities in the country was inadequate and cannot satisfy the educational needs of the Nigeria youths. This assertion is also true and applicable to both State and Federal Universities in Nigeria, bearing in mind the number of candidates seeking admission yearly.
The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) was established in Nigeria in 1978. Prior to this, each University was responsible for the conduct of its own concessional examination and admitted its students. In 1987, JAMB performed the exemplary feat of printing examination
6
materials in Nigeria. Since then, the Board's question papers have always been produced and answer scripts processed in Nigeria-Idoko (2008). JAMB, which is now (1978-2010) 32years old, celebrated its 30th anniversary of success (1978-2008) at the Headquarters office, Bwari, Abuja. A review of JAMB activities after more than thirty years of existence, with the introduction of UTME is seen as imperative and justifiable.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Manual registration and examination processing system in any process or institution or exam body is always affected by delay, misplacement, erroneous entries, etc. Examination registration is highly a critical issue as students affected by these lapses may loose one year before they can register for another exam. This leads to lost of resources, time, discouragement, and defeat in academic pursuit. Going by this, it is evident that for an effective administration of Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, the registration and examination result process has to be online.
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The objective of this project is to examine how unified tertiary and matriculation examination system can be computerised, with the main objective being to:
7
1. Develop a website that can enable the JAMB administration to process student‘s registration form.
2. Design an online examination processing system for UTME
3. Design a system that will allow students to check their results online.