JAMB Announces Special Exams For Absent UTME Candidates
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced that it will conduct a special examination for candidates who missed the recently concluded Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
According to JAMB Registrar, Professor Is-haq Oloyede, the decision aims to accommodate the estimated 5.6 percent of candidates who were absent from the exams.
“We are also taking the decision that all those who missed that examination, whatever the reason, the 5.6 per cent or 6 per cent that missed it, we would not only mop up. Normally, we hold one mop-up nationwide for those with one issue or another. This time, we are creating a new mop-up. Even those who missed the earlier exam due to absence, we will extend this opportunity to them.
“It’s not that we are doing something extraordinary. In class, you make up an examination when students miss it for one reason or the other. We just don’t allow abuse of that. So we will allow all the candidates who missed the main exam for any reason to take part in this mop-up,” he said.
During a meeting with stakeholders in Abuja, Oloyede emphasised JAMB’s commitment to resolving issues affecting the examination process.
He rejected suggestions that administrative failures were due to incompetence or ethnic bias, stressing that the board does not discriminate based on background or ethnicity.
“I say it for the fourth time that no conspiracy theory is relevant to this case. There is nothing to say north, south, or that you buy more outside. Something happened like people who have been doing something well for years and something just went wrong. I did not throw them under the bus,” he said.
The registrar noted that the mop-up exercise will provide an opportunity for all affected candidates, regardless of the reason for their absence, to take the exam.
Oloyede noted that this decision is in line with standard practices, where students who miss exams are allowed to make up for them.
The JAMB Registrar also took the opportunity to clarify the purpose of the UTME, stating that it is a placement test designed to rank candidates for available spaces in institutions, rather than a measure of intelligence or overall academic potential.
JAMB Announces Special Exams For Absent UTME Candidates is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
