BY MAYOWA SAMUEL
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has shifted the 2023 Mock Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (Mock-UTME) earlier scheduled for Thursday, 16th March 2023, to Thursday, 30th March 2023.
The Board was forced to shift the date of the examination partly because of a change in the date for the Gubernatorial and State Houses of Assembly elections earlier scheduled to hold on Saturday,11th March 2023 but now moved to 18th March 2023.
Spokesperson of JAMB, Fabian Benjamin who made this known in a statement on Monday in Abuja, said candidates, who registered early and indicated their willingness to take the Mock-UTME, would be notified as to when to print their Mock-UTME notification slip, which would contain their centres and other details.
He explained that Mock-UTME is an optional examination introduced by the Board to provide opportunity for candidates to have hands-on experience with the system as well as allow the Board to ascertain its readiness and that of its partners for the main UTME, which is scheduled to hold between 29th April, to 12th May 2023.
Benjamin also announced that this year’s UTME would witness some groundbreaking innovations aimed at addressing observed infractions and centre failures.
He noted for instance that in the new regime if there is a delay of up to one hour before the commencement of a particular session, that session stands cancelled and would be rescheduled along with the candidates.
“By the same token, no examination can be started one hour after the scheduled commencement time. The session will be scheduled for any VACANT or AVAILABLE slot. The Board has made it mandatory that candidates must be notified of their new scheduled session or centre, as the case may be, before they leave their centre. In addition, no candidate would be allowed to spend less than one hour before the submission of responses during the UTME.
Similarly, the new regime would make it impossible for candidates to log in after one hour of activation of the examination.
“If for any reason, an examination session is cancelled or cannot hold, candidates are not to panic as they will simply be scheduled for the next available session, which could be that same day. What such candidates are expected to do is to quietly leave the hall and move to the Holding Area to await further instruction,” he stated.
The Board further stated that the affected candidates are not to leave the examination centre until they have been notified of the day and time of their rescheduled examination.
“Candidates are to note that any rescheduled examination is strictly meant to accommodate only those whose examination session could not hold on account of one reason or another, not for those who were marked LATE or ABSENT for their session,” he said.
