Post-ume screening examinations and graduate quality of Nigeria’s Tertiary Institutions

Abstract

This paper is based on the effect of Post-Universities Matriculation Examinations (Post-UME) screening examination on the quality of graduates produced in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions. The Post-UME is opened to candidates who obtained minimum score in UME , which each university determines. As a descriptive survey, the study population comprised of 450 from three universities in the Western Geo-Political zone of Nigeria and Ogun state was chosen. In Ogun state, there are sixuniversities (one federal, two state and three private) owned universities. The strata of the sampling were drawn from 100-300 level students of the selected universities in Ogun state based on the fact that these students came in through the Post-UME and experienced different university management perspectives. The instrument used for data collection was titled “Effects of Post-UME Screening Examination Questionnaire (EPSEQ)” while frequency counts and simple percentages were used toanalyze the data collected. As anticipated, majority of the respondents showed a wide acceptance of Post-UME. One of the recommendations of the study was that both UME results and Post-UME results should be jointly used by all universities in Nigeria to conduct their admission process inorder to produce quality graduates.