The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board wants to establish a Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination centre in Ottawa, Canada, from 2027.
JAMB says the initiative will make it easier for Nigerians living in Canada and elsewhere in North America to sit for the examination and strengthen their connection with Nigeria's tertiary education system.
On paper, it sounds like progress.
But Nigeria has a habit of confusing doing something internationally with doing something important.
And this proposal deserves a much harder question:
Is an Ottawa JAMB centre really one of the things Nigeria's education system urgently needs?
That is not an attack on Nigerians living in Canada.
It is a question about priorities.
Because while Nigerian officials are planning how to administer UTME in Ottawa, millions of young Nigerians at home are dealing with overcrowded classrooms, inadequate laboratories, poor infrastructure, unreliable academic calendars, limited access to quality tertiary education and a graduate labour market that struggles to absorb the people the system produces.
So why is Ottawa suddenly a policy achievement?
Let's be fair: there is a legitimate reason for the centre
There are Nigerians in Canada whose children may want to study in Nigeria.
Some families maintain strong connections to the country. Some may prefer Nigerian universities for cultural or family reasons. Others may simply want their children to have access to Nigerian tertiary institutions.
There is nothing unreasonable about making UTME accessible to them.
A teenager living in Canada should not necessarily have to spend thousands of dollars travelling to Nigeria simply to sit an entrance examination.
If there is genuine demand, a properly designed overseas examination service can be justified.
The problem isn't the existence of the centre.
The problem is whether Nigeria has demonstrated that Ottawa is an appropriate priority for scarce public resources.
And that is where the proposal becomes questionable.
Where are the numbers?
This should be the first question.
How many candidates in Canada are expected to sit UTME?
Not "there are Nigerians in Canada."
We already know that.
The relevant question is:
How many of them actually need JAMB?
Canada has a substantial Nigerian population, but that does not mean every Nigerian family there intends to send its children to Nigerian universities.
Some children were born in Canada.
Some are Canadian citizens.
Some will attend Canadian universities.
Some may pursue education elsewhere.
Some may have no interest in Nigerian tertiary institutions.
Therefore, population size is not the same thing as examination demand.
JAMB should publish its projected candidate numbers.
If it expects 50 candidates, Nigerians deserve to know.
If it expects 500, tell us.
If it expects 5,000, tell us.
Public policy should begin with evidence, not applause.
JAMB already knows overseas examinations are not cheap
This makes the financial question even more important.
JAMB spent ₦113.8 million supervising UTME across seven foreign centres in 2025, according to reports.
That doesn't automatically make foreign centres wasteful.
Some public services are expensive because they serve citizens outside the country.
But it does demonstrate that international examination administration carries real costs.
A foreign centre requires much more than computers.
There is:
- examination infrastructure;
- secure internet;
- biometric equipment;
- technical support;
- security;
- accreditation;
- supervision;
- personnel;
- maintenance;
- logistics;
- travel;
- contingency arrangements.
So before Ottawa becomes another permanent facility, Nigerians should be told:
What will it cost?
And perhaps more importantly:
What will it cost per candidate?
If 100 candidates use the centre and the annual operating cost is enormous, the economics look very different from a centre serving 2,000 or 5,000 candidates.
That is basic public-sector accounting.
The absurdity becomes clearer when you look at Nigeria's domestic education crisis
Nigeria does not have an examination-centre crisis.
Nigeria has an education-quality crisis.
The country has young people who cannot afford tuition.
Schools that need laboratories.
Universities that need modern research facilities.
Students who struggle with accommodation.
Researchers who need funding.
Graduates who leave university without the skills employers require.
And a huge population of young Nigerians who cannot access quality education at all.
These are the problems that should dominate the national education conversation.
Instead, we are celebrating the possibility of taking UTME to Ottawa.
That is where the criticism becomes legitimate.
The question isn't "Why Canada?"
It is:
Why Canada before fixing the much larger problems at home?
We keep confusing international visibility with educational development
There is a dangerous tendency in government policy to attach the word "international" to an initiative and assume that automatically makes it strategic.
International centre.
International conference.
International partnership.
International expansion.
Internationalisation.
But a country does not internationalise its education system simply by exporting its examination administration.
It internationalises education by producing institutions that people around the world actually want to attend.
That means:
world-class teaching.
serious research.
modern laboratories.
stable academic calendars.
globally recognised qualifications.
strong industry partnerships.
competitive salaries for academics.
safe and functional campuses.
excellent digital infrastructure.
That is internationalisation.
A JAMB centre is an administrative facility.
It is not an international university.
Here is the uncomfortable irony
Nigeria is establishing mechanisms to make it easier for Nigerians in Canada to enter Nigerian universities.
At the same time, thousands of Nigerians are spending enormous amounts of money to leave Nigeria for education.
That should tell us something.
The bigger policy question is not:
"How can we make it easier for Nigerians abroad to write JAMB?"
It is:
"Why are so many Nigerians determined to study abroad in the first place?"
If Nigeria could answer that question honestly, its education policy would become much more interesting.
Young Nigerians don't leave simply because they enjoy airports.
They leave because they are looking for better educational infrastructure, stronger research opportunities, more predictable academic systems, better career prospects and internationally competitive qualifications.
Some are leaving because they believe the investment in a foreign degree will produce better economic returns.
That is the problem government should be attacking.
Build something Nigerians want to come back to
Imagine if Nigeria reversed the direction.
Imagine a Nigerian family living in Toronto deciding:
"Our child should study engineering in Nigeria."
Not because it is cheaper.
Not because the family wants to maintain cultural connections.
But because Nigerian universities are genuinely competitive.
Imagine Nigerian universities becoming attractive to students from Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda, Egypt and beyond.
Imagine foreign students paying tuition to Nigerian universities.
Imagine Nigerian universities becoming research hubs for African technology, medicine, energy, agriculture and manufacturing.
That would be internationalisation.
That would generate foreign exchange.
That would create jobs.
That would strengthen Nigeria's intellectual influence across Africa.
And that would be far more consequential than simply opening an examination centre in Ottawa.
The government should publish a business case
If JAMB believes the Ottawa centre is a good idea, there should be no reason to hide the numbers.
Publish the plan.
Tell Nigerians:
How many candidates are expected?
What is the projected annual operating cost?
Who will provide the premises?
Who will pay for the equipment?
Will taxpayers subsidise the centre?
What examination fees will candidates pay?
How many additional students are expected to enrol in Nigerian universities?
What is the projected return on the investment?
Why Ottawa rather than Toronto or another Canadian city?
What evidence demonstrates that Ottawa can serve North American candidates effectively?
Those are reasonable questions.
They are not anti-diaspora.
They are not anti-Canada.
They are simply questions that any responsible public institution should answer before spending public money.
There is also a geographic problem
JAMB's proposal is described as serving Nigerians in Canada and across North America.
But Ottawa is not North America.
It is one city.
A Nigerian living in Vancouver is thousands of kilometres away.
Someone in Calgary is also far from Ottawa.
Someone in New York may find another location more convenient.
So if the centre is intended to serve an entire continent, JAMB needs to explain its geographical strategy.
Otherwise the board risks solving a very small part of a very large problem.
Perhaps the better approach is not to immediately establish a permanent centre.
Perhaps JAMB should first measure demand.
Then establish temporary or rotating centres where candidate numbers justify them.
Or partner with existing accredited educational institutions.
Or develop secure examination arrangements that can scale according to demand.
Demand should determine infrastructure.
Not the other way around.
And there is another uncomfortable question: what is JAMB actually exporting?
If the stated objective is to "showcase Nigerian tertiary education internationally," then JAMB should be asked what exactly it intends to showcase.
Is it showcasing Nigeria's universities?
If so, where is the international recruitment strategy?
Where are the scholarships?
Where are the university partnerships?
Where are the global research programmes?
Where are the campaigns encouraging Canadian and other international students to study in Nigeria?
Where are the improvements to the student experience?
Because if the only thing being exported is the examination, then Nigeria isn't really exporting tertiary education.
It is exporting admission bureaucracy.
The smartest use of technology may be to avoid building another centre
This is 2026.
Nigeria is already running a computer-based examination system.
JAMB has invested heavily in digital registration, biometric verification and CBT infrastructure.
That creates an obvious question:
Does every diaspora market require a permanent physical examination centre?
There may be circumstances where physical centres remain necessary.
Security and examination integrity cannot simply be ignored.
But JAMB should investigate secure partnerships with existing Canadian institutions and other controlled examination facilities before committing to permanent infrastructure.
The principle should be:
Use existing infrastructure where possible.
Build new infrastructure only where demand justifies it.
That is how a serious institution manages resources.
Don't turn this into an anti-diaspora argument
There is a legitimate danger in criticising the Ottawa proposal badly.
Someone will immediately say:
"Are Nigerians abroad not Nigerians?"
Of course they are.
The diaspora contributes enormous amounts to Nigeria through remittances, investment, entrepreneurship, professional networks and family support.
They deserve functional government services.
If Nigerian citizens abroad need access to UTME, JAMB should provide it.
The issue is proportionality.
If an initiative costs relatively little and serves a meaningful number of citizens, implement it.
If it requires significant recurring expenditure for a tiny number of beneficiaries while basic educational infrastructure remains severely underfunded at home, policymakers should reconsider the priority.
That is not discrimination.
It is public-sector economics.
The real stupidity would be measuring success by the ribbon-cutting
This is where Nigeria needs to change its mindset.
A government project should not be judged by:
"Did we launch it?"
It should be judged by:
"Did it solve a significant problem?"
Opening a JAMB centre in Ottawa will be easy to celebrate.
There will be officials.
There may be diplomats.
There will be photographs.
There will be speeches about global reach and diaspora engagement.
But five years later, someone should be able to answer:
How many additional Nigerian university students came through that centre?
How much did it cost?
How many candidates used it?
Was it financially sustainable?
Did it increase international enrolment?
If nobody can answer those questions, then the centre wasn't a strategy.
It was an announcement.
Nigeria should be thinking much bigger
There is nothing inherently wrong with a JAMB centre in Ottawa.
But Nigeria should stop congratulating itself for solving problems that are relatively small while leaving the structural problems untouched.
The country doesn't need to merely make it easier for Nigerians abroad to access Nigerian university admission.
It needs to make Nigerian universities worth accessing.
That requires serious investment in:
teachers.
research.
laboratories.
technology.
student accommodation.
libraries.
vocational education.
industry partnerships.
entrepreneurship.
academic stability.
global accreditation.
graduate employability.
That is how Nigeria competes internationally.
The question Nigeria should be asking
Instead of asking:
"How do we take JAMB to Ottawa?"
Perhaps the better question is:
"How do we make Ottawa students want to come to Nigeria?"
That single change in perspective captures the difference between administrative expansion and national development.
Nigeria can build an examination centre in Canada.
But that will not fix Nigerian universities.
It will not improve research.
It will not create laboratories.
It will not stop talented young Nigerians from leaving.
It will not make Nigerian degrees more competitive.
And it certainly will not transform Nigerian tertiary education into a global destination.
So yes, make UTME accessible to Nigerians abroad if the demand justifies it.
But don't confuse accessibility with excellence.
Don't confuse an overseas examination centre with internationalisation.
And don't confuse a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Ottawa with educational progress.
Nigeria doesn't need to take JAMB to the world nearly as urgently as it needs to take Nigerian education to world-class standards.
Build universities that Nigerians abroad want to come home to.
Build universities that foreigners want to come to.
Build an education system that produces researchers, engineers, doctors, entrepreneurs, scientists and innovators capable of competing anywhere in the world.
Then, if Ottawa still needs a JAMB centre, open it.
But let the centre be a consequence of Nigeria's educational success—
not a substitute for it.
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