Oluwanifemi Ojo
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has revealed that there are still 250,000 candidates who have not yet taken the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
The Punch reported that the JAMB Registrar, Prof. Isaq Oloyede disclosed this information. The registrar explained that the reason was that the exam had been rescheduled for some candidates. Out of the 1.6 million registered candidates, 1.350 million have already taken the exam.
After monitoring some of the centres in Lagos, including Ogba, Agidingbi, and the University of Lagos, Prof. Oloyede stated on Friday evening that he was impressed by the conduct of the candidates and the performance of the Computer Based Centres.
In his words, “I am impressed by the performance of the centres and the conduct of the students. I’m happy that parents are largely kept out of the process. By now, we should have covered 1.5 million out of the registered candidates but because of the rescheduled candidates, we have about 250,000 candidates left. That is why we have about 370 centres that are still running because they have not finished the rescheduled candidates.”
Mr Oloyede said during a visit to the visually impaired centre at the University of Lagos, “The committee handling this is doing a very good job. And I also believe that those who are incapacitated with one form of disability or the other are given a sense of belonging. But from what I have seen, they are happy the government, the nation, now care about them.”
He further stated, “The level of examination malpractice has gone down drastically. I will encourage candidates to know that there is no other way to succeed than to work hard. Throughout the country, the level of examination malpractice, and impersonation, is very minimal, in fact below the international standard for examination malpractice, particularly from Lagos. And now we have better devices to detect any form of exam malpractice. If you look at the situation in the past, prior to this year, it’s possible for examinations to be disrupted. An examination that was scheduled for 8 am could start at 8 pm.
“The difference now is one hour, after one and half hours, you cannot start that same exam. That’s why this year we have been cancelling so many exams. Yes, we have to cancel them because they are no longer valid because the subjects scheduled for that session have been taken elsewhere.”
He also said that candidates cannot write UTME after the scheduled time has passed and nothing can be done about it.
