The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has responded to criticisms over the board’s schedule and candidate placement for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
According to Oloyede, the board’s exam schedule is reasonable, with the first session starting at 8 a.m. and candidates expected to arrive at the examination centres 45 minutes earlier for preliminary checks.
Oloyede, who spoke when the education minister, Dr Tunde Alausa, was monitoring the examination in Bwari, said, “We have always started our exam at 8 o’clock. The first session is at 8 o’clock. The second session, 10.30. The third session is at 1 pm and the fourth session is at 3.30. But every reasonable person will know that you have these children who are young, and you need to let them know that they don’t get there at 8 am. They have some preliminary things to do.
“We must check that there are 250 of them that we are inviting. We must check their papers. So we expect them to do that for about 45 minutes.”
He added, “So if we now ask these children to arrive at the centre at 6.30, I don’t know if anybody can say that, ‘Oh, my own child arrived at 7.30 and they sent him back.’ But should we tell them 7.30? How many of them will miss the exam? But you have this mob mentality.
“We start our exam just like any workday at 8 a.m. And even in their school, they start school at 8 o’clock. So what is bad about fixing our exam for 8 o’clock and asking the children to arrive so that we can screen 250 of them? And these are just candidates for the first session.”
The registrar also dismissed claims that candidates were being sent to examination centres outside their chosen locations, challenging critics to provide evidence to support their claims.
He cited instances where candidates had deliberately misled their parents about their chosen examination centres.
“And I’ve heard one uninformed person saying that we send people to centres other than what they have chosen. We have thrown the challenge. Bring one of such persons.
“If you bring one, we will give you a lot of money. You can never find one. Because it will be unreasonable to post a person to where he or she has not chosen.
“Some of these children deceive their parents. We have had many cases of somebody choosing Sokoto and telling the father that he chose Lagos. And when you ask the boy, he says, I want to go to Sokoto because I want Sokoto,” he said.
Oloyede also revealed that over 40 individuals had been arrested for impersonation and other examination malpractices, with some candidates even attempting to snap pictures of the examination screen with cameras.
The registrar emphasised that the board would not reschedule exams for candidates who miss their scheduled sessions, likening it to missing a flight and expecting the plane to wait.
“We don’t reschedule anybody. If you are going to the UK and you miss the flight, will you tell the plane to come back?” he asked.
Speaking further, Oloyede stated that over 1.6 million candidates had already sat for the exam, with less than 600,000 remaining.
He assured that the board would thoroughly investigate any reported cases of malpractice and prosecute those found guilty.
