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Overview of Graduate Standardisation Examination

ADESIYAN OMOLOLU

The popular Chinese saying goes thus: Better to live in interesting times than to live long. Indeed these are interesting times for graduate job seekers and employers alike. Today, the number of candidates completing higher education has expanded significantly bringing greater diversity in the levels of ability, subjects studied and degree standards of those seeking work for the first time. The tertiary institutions which have produced these aspiring youths are of varying standards and varying levels of integrity. As a result, the graduates are also of varying standards making comparison across candidates from different institutions difficult to achieve as degrees obtained and grades achieved are no longer a sufficient indicator of the true quality of a graduate. Here lies the graduate screening and selection challenge for most employers.

Hundreds of companies around the country today use aptitude tests in their screening process with a view to ascertaining true quality of the intakes. The process for most companies is time consuming and cumbersome constituting a major distraction from the company’s core activities. At the macro level, there is duplication of activities as graduates get tested several times depending on the number of companies they apply to in a bid to signal their true quality.

The aptitude test regime has somewhat become a nightmare for most Nigerian Graduates. Majority of them struggle to get information about when and how corporate organisations plan to carry out their aptitude tests and recruitment. They spend time and money gambling on aptitude test dates, in many instances, they travel across towns risking their lives trying to sit as many aptitude tests as possible with a view to increasing the chances of getting a job. Tests for which there is never transparency as the applicants are never given any feedback on their scores, making it easy for the "Nigerian Factor" and the need for "connection" to kick in. For some unlucky applicants, Test Dates end up as mobile police affairs when the coordinators realize that they have not provided sufficiently for the test. For those who get to write the tests, some have to battle with illegible prints from past GMAT questions that have been photocopied to the nth degree. Interesting times indeed.

To remedy this situation, a private sector initiative referred to in certain quarters as the Dragnet Revolution has introduced the Graduate Standardisation Examination (GSE) scheme to help deliver standardization of applicants and save our graduate applicants from the difficulties they face while chasing aptitude tests up and down the country. The idea is to have one standard test which will be acceptable by a host of employers. In this regard, the GSE is being positioned as a centralized standardised private and independent graduate assessment scheme which can be looked at like the JAMB/GMAT for graduate employment. The GSE will then serve as the reference aptitude test for employers who would no longer need to carryout their individual aptitude tests.

This is definitely a breath of fresh air for the applicants. The GSE offers equal opportunity to all applicants as they will no longer require privileged information on a company’s testing dates as well as special favour to be short listed for the test. GSE Exam centres are in the public domain and will be open to all graduates all year round allowing the applicants schedule their test dates themselves and at their convenience on-line at the GSE website. With results in the GSE Exam, applicants should be able to apply to the top companies in Nigeria, making it a one stop shop for their aptitude tests. They will also not need to travel to the major commercial cities Lagos, Abuja and Port-Harcourt in order to sit an aptitude test as the GSE is available in 22 locations nationwide covering all of the 19 states of old.

The GSE, like other public exams (JAMB, SAT, GMAT) has to be paid for by the candidate. In this case N5000 for the GSE. Payment for general public exams is nothing new, but payment for an exam used directly in the employment process is strange. No wonder they call it the Dragnet revolution. When questioned on this issue, the promoters were quick to stress that the amount should be seen in terms of the value it brings and not so much in terms of the cost. The exam will give an applicant visibility to a good number of companies they say over a 2 years period. In their opinion, many applicants already spend more than that traveling for the individual tests.

Take as an example an applicant who comes from Kaduna to sit an aptitude test in Lagos for a particular bank at a pre-ordained date and time. He will spend no less than N12,000 in inter-modal transportation alone as well as risk his life on the road to sit a test which he may never get feedback for. If his vehicle developes a fault on the road and he comes in late as a result, its tough luck for him. Look at the GSE scenario in comparison. With GSE which adopts the GMAT paradigm, he pays N5,000 and sits a standardised computer based exam locally in Kaduna, at a convenient date which he chooses. If he can’t make the date, he simply goes on-line and reschedules. The results of the tests are made available within 5 minutes and he can use the same result to apply to many other companies. N5,000 well spent.

It is envisaged that the GSE regime will bring in transparency in the graduate recruitment activity as the scores are available immediately. In fact, 5 minutes after the test and this can allow employers introduce transparent cut-off marks. Both applicants and employers can assess performance objectively. The GSE is truly built on equal opportunity, meritocracy and fair play. It provides a level playing field.

On the surface of it, the GSE comes across as a positive contribution to the society but more questions need to be asked. Whose standards are the tests based on? What competence do the promoters have? How will they combat malpractice and the malaise of test mercenaries? Worthwhile questions indeed for which we have sought answers from the GSE promoters.

The GSE is based on the UK designed First Graduate Assessment (FGA) by Previsor (UK), which is an internationally accredited Standard Test like GMAT, but unlike the American GMAT which is tailored for academia, the British FGA is tailored for the workplace. The assessment is divided into three (3) sections: Numerical Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning and Abstract Reasoning. The Aptitude Test has a total of sixty eight (68) questions which must be answered in Sixty (60) minutes, with each section being allocated a specific time. The GSE assessment is delivered in line with the International Test Commission’s guidelines for computer-based and internet delivered testing.

The promoters are relying on the strengths of their technical backers, the world leaders in pre-employment assessment – PreVisor. Previsor’s graduate testing solutions are trusted by more than 10,000 organizations worldwide, including over 100 of the Fortune 500. The solution being deployed here in Nigeria as the GSE was the winner of the fiercely contested award for "Best Technical Innovation in Online Recruitment" in the UK for 2008.

According to the promoters, the GSE computer based assessments would always be conducted in a consistent, fair and ethical manner at all times in a conducive, applicant friendly environment. The centres are equipped with the necessary infrastructure to enable on-line tests to be administered. At these centres, the applicant’s identity is recorded using both digital photo as well as finger print. This measure is implemented to check the malaise of test mercenaries. All exams are administered under the strictest of conditions in line with best practice for the proctoring of exam.

The history of the GMAT which is today accepted by over 1000 institutions worldwide reveals an era where only 6 institutions based their admissions on the GMAT. New concepts no matter how relevant will always need time to take hold. The GSE is a new concept in Nigeria and will take a while to be properly understood and appreciated. Looked upon as a recruitment consultants, the promoters reject such a classification stating that they do not offer job search or applicant search services to either applicants or employers respectively. They are simply a testing body providing a technology driven platform for the implementation of a standardised aptitude testing scheme. Their partner organisations believe in best practice based on equal opportunity, meritocracy and fairness. Maybe the GSE concept has come too early for the Nigerian scene. We hear that Dragnet is already in talks with investors from South Africa to deploy the scheme in that far away land.

Public Policy and Private Higher Education in Nigeria

PROF. ISAAC N. OBASI

The central focus of today’s article is on why public policy should care or be concerned about private higher education in Nigeria. The word ‘care’ is operationalized here to mean registering, licensing, accrediting, regulating, monitoring, and supporting private higher education institutions in ways that can promote their growth and quality over time. By private higher education, I mean simply that aspect of higher education, which is driven primarily by private entrepreneurial initiatives rather than by the state. They include private universities, private polytechnics and monotechnics, private colleges of education, church-owned seminaries for the training of priests, post-secondary technical and vocational institutions especially the Information and Technology-based ones, among host of other institutional types. Private higher education institutions are usually established, owned and operated by private entrepreneurs or religious organizations to provide certain services that are in demand in society.

The central role of knowledge in the determination of political and policy outcomes is often underestimated and at times not even recognized at all in a country like Nigeria. We care about politics and what happens in politics because such determines what happens in our lives, be it in the economic, social, religious, educational, health, and other spheres of life. But politics is not always an independent factor in our lives. Some times what happens in politics is determined by some other factors. Although politics is driven by the need to achieve certain interests through choices that are made, interest itself is driven by knowledge, which is acquired through education. Knowledge is therefore key to the quality of judgment and choices that are made by politicians in the political arena. Policy outputs (tangible manifestations) and policy outcomes (intended and unintended consequences that flow from action and inaction by government) as James Anderson, defined them, do not therefore occur in a knowledge vacuum.

While it may be said that politics rules everything in society, it is right to say that knowledge or education rules politics. This point is hardly appreciated by public policy makers in Nigeria otherwise the educational system would not have been so badly marginalized they way it has been over the years. Sometimes the potency of education is deliberately undermined for political expediencies, in order to incapacitate it from challenging the mess that goes on in politics. If knowledge is that powerful then, higher education knowledge plays a central role in the governance of society. This is one good reason why public policy should care about the promotion of quality private higher education in Nigeria.

In many parts of the world, where access into public higher education institutions proved to be difficult, the emergence of private higher education institutions played a key role in solving the problem. Many people in the world today would not have had access into higher education if not for private higher education institutions. Again, in many parts of the world, private higher education institutions have been in the forefront of providing differentiated educational functions in multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi-racial societies in ways that preserve both their mono- and multi-cultural values. These are other good reasons why public policy should care about the promotion of quality private higher education.

But more importantly, public policy should care about high quality private higher education because historically its institutions were forerunners of higher education in the first place. For example, the Harvard University and many other prestigious universities in the United States of America and in some other developed countries were products of non-state and private entrepreneurial initiatives. Many important breakthroughs in the world came from private higher education institutions and still continue to come from them. Private higher education institutions therefore play critical role in the development of any nation if given the necessary public policy support they require. This is indeed one important reason why public policy should continue to care about high quality private higher education in Nigeria.

Prof. Obasi is Coordinator of MPA & MAPIR Programs, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Southern Africa.

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