- Two candidates slumped at centres
- Service providers let us down- Varsity spokesman
The just-concluded Post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination aptitude test, conducted for prospective students for the 2017/2018 academic session by the University of Lagos, was marred by various hitches.
Throughout the conduct of the UNILAG Post-UTME test, which held on the university’s campus from October 4 to 8, candidates, who turned up for the exercise and their parents, who accompanied them to the centres, deplored the poor organisation of the entire process.
Owing to the exhaustion suffered by the candidates after waiting for several hours for the test to commence, two of them reportedly suddenly collapsed and fainted. They were rushed to the school’s clinic for treatment.
The candidates and their parents described preparations at the two centres, where the test was scheduled to be written – the Distance Learning Centre and the Electronic Test Company – as “too shoddy.”
Candidates had to sleep outside the premises of the test centers overnight
During the period for the test, the servers at the centres malfunctioned and shut down, making it difficult for the candidates to have access to the examination pages and delaying the entire process for several hours.
Our correspondent, who visited the university campus during the period of the test, observed a long queue of the candidates sweating profusely due to the heat from the scorching sun, as they waited to be called into the examination halls.
Narrating her experience to our correspondent, an aggrieved student, Miss Ebele Akwuonu, said, “When the management couldn’t salvage the bad situation of the servers, they started evacuating us to the second test centre (ETC) at around 2pm and the crowd became very rowdy. My test that was scheduled for 10am was unrealistic because I was still at the exam center as at 7pm, writing. In fact, as at the time I finished, thousands of students were still on long queues, unable to write the exam. So, they had to sleep outside the premises of the test centers overnight.
“The unfortunate thing was that we were not allowed to take anything into the examination hall, except the two copies of the examination pass. So, we had to drop our bags, including phones, with friends and family who waited for us outside. Some students, who didn’t come to the school with any relative or acquaintance, had no other choice than to give their bags and phones to strangers, who were making brisk business of helping people to keep their phones for a fee of N100. Some students were unlucky. After writing their test, they couldn’t find the people who kept their bags for them as the place became too rowdy.”
A parent, Mrs. Aminat Alakija, who came in company with her son to the test centre, expressed her disappointment with the organisation and the timing of the test.
Alakija said that she came very early to the test centre with her son, but several hours later, he had not written the test.
An academic staff of the university, who pleaded anonymity, wondered why the institution’s server always developed a fault during electronic registration and screening.
He urged the UNILAG authorities to urgently address the problem, which he said had become an embarrassment.
When contacted, Deputy Registrar (Information), UNILAG, Mr. Toyin Adebule, said that the hitches caused by the server during the period of the test should be blamed on the service providers.
