The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has said it would not hesitate to withdraw results of candidates involved in malpractice in the just concluded Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, after thorough viewing of Close Circuit Television, CCTV cameras deployed for the examination.
This was as it disclosed that it recorded 40 cases of malpractices as well as arresting some security agents for involvement in various forms of fraud during the exercise.
The 40 cases of malpractices in this year’s examination, according to the board, were against the over 4,000 recorded in the previous year.
Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Ish-aq Oloyede, made this known during a visit by the Senate Committee on Basic and Secondary Education to the board’s headquarters in Abuja.
Oloyede who presented the 2020 budget performance of the Board to the Committee, said the introduction of National Identification Number (NIN) in UTME registration successfully flushed out ‘fake people ‘ from the exam process as well as curtailed malpractices.
“This year examination malpractice dropped radically from over 4000, 5000 to about 40 and of the 40, not less than 50% of the 40 are traceable to institutions.
“What we have this year is security agents trying to change candidates after they have been verified. After biometric verification their parents would have paid security agents they will now smuggle him out and smuggle in new person whose finger was not verified, of course the cctv cameras will pick them and that is why we are now arresting the security men, two or three have confessed that I paid N2,000, my mother paid N3,000 to smuggle in a person other than the person (registered for the exam) because they could not go through biometrics,” Oloyede said.
Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on basic and secondary education, Akon Eyakenyi, who led the team to JAMB, expressed delight and satisfaction with the report presented by Oloyede, especially in the area of the Board’s expenditure and seamless conduct of UTME.
On some of the issues raised by the Board, the committee promised to ensure an amendment of JAMB Act to prohibit regularisation of illegal admission and prescribe a minimum age that must be attained by a candidate before gaining entry into the university system.
She said : “The interaction with the registrar of JAMB today revealed a lot of truth that Nigerians don’t know as it relates to conduct of special exams like the UTME. I would like to first appreciate the registrar, his management team. Indeed, today’s revelation has proven that the registrar is a round peg in a round hole. He knows what it takes to run an institution like this. Most of the revelations on things we saw are not what should be exposed to the public in terms of the conduct of the exam.
“The indices; what they are looking for. What the registration bodies should do, what the admission institutions should do. I want to say that they have done very very well. The progress so far, what we have seen as a committee oversighting board. We want to congratulate them for the great work they have done. If this continues, definitely the educational sector in this nation will be improved. That is what we are looking out for.
“JAMB serves as a bridge between the secondary and the University, if the products from the secondary school are not properly catered for and reassessed before turning them to the university, definitely we will have a problem as to the students in the university. JAMB is doing a great job in that aspect.
“Our own work is that of making laws, we have identified two major areas that we need to go into the process of amending the Act establishing JAMB that is the area of support that we will give, other than that, we also intend to pass on what we have seen today to the appropriate MDAs, the Federal Ministry of Education to ensure the support that JAMB needs is given to them.”
Other members of the committee that took part in the oversight visit include Senator Yahaya Oloriegbe, Senator Francis Ibezim, Senator Kola Balogun and Senator Stephen Odey.
