JAMB computer-based UTME begins Today

JAMB computer-based UTME begins Today

The 2015 Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB)-organised
Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) commences
Tuesday (today) in 400 centres nationwide with over 1.47 million
candidates writing the examination.
The maiden wholly Computer-Based Test (CBT), which starts Tuesday,
March 10, 2015 and runs through Saturday, March 21, will be written in
Nigeria and seven foreign countries, namely Ghana, Cameroun,
Republic of Benin, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Ethiopia. The
examination, which has witnessed a decrease of about 156, 695 in the
number of applicants compared to that of 2014, also has 208 jailbirds
vying for slots in tertiary institutions.
Twenty-eight of the prisoners are quartered at Ikoyi Prisons, Lagos.
Imo State has the highest number of applicants with 104,381 and the
Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has the lowest with just 4,085.
However, not all candidates that registered for the examination would
write same owing to logistical lapses on the part of the organisers and
the inability of some of the applicants to stick to set guidelines.
When The Guardian visited JAMB’s accredited CBT centre at Ilupeju
Monday, some applicants who ostensibly registered through cyber
cafes not approved by JAMB were seen loitering around the facility,
and in possession of registration numbers, which JAMB claimed were
alien to it.
A JAMB official, who also supervised the centre, Mr. Kunle Makinde,
told The Guardian that the affected candidates failed to follow JAMB’s
guidelines, saying: “Candidates are meant to collect a brochure and a
customised compact disc at the point of purchase of their scratch
cards. All the information about accredited JAMB CBT centres are
contained in it. They are supposed to read it or visit the JAMB website
before commencement of registration.”
When asked how the conditions of the affected applicants could be
remedied to enable them write the examination, he retorted: “I’m
afraid, nothing can be done as it is because they are now like
candidates who failed to register. The implication is that there is no
way they can sit for the examination, as their data are not in JAMB
server. The e-slip they have is a fake one. If you register where you
are not supposed to register, it means we do not have your
information on our server and they will have to wait till next year.
“The difference between the original and fake e-slip is that if you have
the original, the serial number and the pin number must appear on the
e-slip.” If this is not the case, the e-slip is fake.”
Besides, the administrator of the centre, Mrs. Margaret Ebere, who
stated that the centre is ever ready for the examination, said: “This is
an e-test company, we did it last year successfully and we are doing it
again. We are not foreseeing any challenge because we have three
power generating sets as well as an inverter where all the computers
are connected.