KEEP NCE IN UTME TO PROTECT STANDARDS
By L. Adewale Jimoh -Atoba, Ph.D.
waleatoba11@gmail.com
Obaagun, Osun State.
The Nigerian government, through the Honourable Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, recently announced an adjustment to admission policies for higher institutions. He stated that Nigeria is moving towards excluding the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) as a criterion for admission into Colleges of Education.
This pronouncement seems like progress towards producing more teachers to fill existing vacancies. However, from theoretical and academic perspectives, it poses a grave danger to the teaching profession and the educational system in Nigeria, specifically regarding teacher quality and the future of Nigeria’s education system.
While the intention may be to expand access to more teaching professionals, the decision to exclude UTME for NCE candidates is academically, professionally, and fundamentally flawed. This policy would not add more value to the teaching profession; rather, it reduces the benchmark for those who will shape young minds and creates an unnecessary dichotomy between the teaching profession—the mother of all professions—and other professions.
As an academic who uses theory to examine issues and propose solutions, I argue that the government, through the Minister of Education, should urgently reverse this decision and make UTME a compulsory requirement for admission into Colleges of Education in Nigeria.
First, John Dewey’s Pragmatic Theory of Education argues that education must balance access with quality. A system that admits unprepared candidates does not serve society, and the result is incompetent practitioners. In Nigeria, UTME serves as a national prerequisite gateway for admission into tertiary institutions—Colleges of Education, Polytechnics, and Universities—by ensuring candidates have basic literacy, numeracy, and reasoning skills.
Excluding UTME for NCE candidates implies that future primary and junior secondary school teachers need not meet the same cognitive prerequisites as other tertiary students. This is ill-advised. If anything, teacher education deserves higher standards, not second-class treatment. Sustaining this policy means Colleges of Education could admit candidates who obtained O’Level results through dubious means or barely passed weak internal evaluations. In line with Dewey, the Federal Government must reverse this policy. Quality and access are not enemies, but without standards, neither survives.
Second, Vertical Equity Theory holds that different educational levels require different entry expectations, but all levels must have a verifiable, external gatekeeping mechanism. The NCE is not a degree, but it is a post-secondary programme designed solely for teachers, sitting above secondary education and below a bachelor’s degree. Excluding UTME collapses this vertical distinction.
Without UTME, what differentiates an NCE candidate from a secondary school leaver who attended a vocational workshop? Nothing. UTME provides a credible, external, and standardized filter that protects the integrity of tertiary education. Passing UTME signals that a candidate has moved from secondary to tertiary level. The government should therefore reinstate UTME for all NCE candidates to restore proper vertical differentiation.
Third, Predictive Validity Theory—drawn from psychology—concerns how well an entrance examination predicts future academic and professional success. Evidence shows that UTME scores, combined with O’Level results, have reasonable predictive validity for completion rates and academic performance in tertiary institutions.
If this policy stands, the government would discard a proven predictor of success. Colleges of Education would rely solely on O’Level results, which are notoriously inconsistent across states, schools, and examination bodies. We have seen candidates with five credits who cannot write coherent English sentences, but UTME often exposes such gaps. Without it, colleges will admit candidates based only on interviews or internally designed entrance tests. To protect the predictive validity of teacher selection, the Federal Government must reverse the policy and maintain the status quo.
In conclusion, the three theories show that the Federal Government’s decision to exclude UTME from College of Education admission undermines the teaching profession in Nigeria. It abandons standards (Dewey), erodes vertical differentiation (Vertical Equity), and discards a valid predictor of success (Predictive Validity).
The result will be a flood of underqualified candidates entering teacher education and graduating into classrooms that need excellence, not mediocrity. The government must reverse the policy and require UTME for admission into Colleges of Education. Teacher quality starts at the gate, and the Minister of Education should not remove the gatekeeper.
