The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board is set to introduce a mock examination for candidates willing to write the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination. JAMB also said that it expected about 1.7 million candidates to write the 2017 UTME examination.
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, disclosed these on Tuesday at the board’s retreat held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta, Ogun State. Oloyede said, “We are working with the possibility of a mock examination, a mock examination for people who just want to try their hands on what we are doing.”
The registrar said that JAMB had decided to extend its Computer Based Test Centres so as to accommodate the 1.7 million targeted candidates for the 2017 UTME. He said, “We are targeting 1.7 million candidates.
We will make sure we satisfy these candidates within a week. That is why we are increasing the capacity of our CBTC centres to be able to admit more candidates, to be able to examine more candidates within a given day.”
Oloyede, who said that the examination body had totally done away with the use of paper examination, noted about three African countries had been trying to copy JAMB on how to conduct examinations.
He disclosed that JAMB was prepared to begin the sale of the 2017 UTME forms to candidates willing to write the examination. “We are more confident now to go along with the sale of the forms for 2017 UTME examination,” he said.
The JAMB registrar, however, said that the examination body could not guarantee a hitch-free examination because of the activities of fraudsters. He added, “I must be frank with you, I cannot promise hitch free examination, because we are testing certain things, we are changing certain things, we want to question the status quo and, of course, we expect a fight back from interests that will be trampled upon.
We are going to be as flexible as humanly possible. But we are not promising a hitch- free examination. “We envisage that there will be some hitches here and there, but it will not be insurmountable. We will be starting to go on a direction that you will all be pleased with.”
Oloyede, however, assured that JAMB would improve on its existing facilities for the smooth conduct of the examination. “We are not going backward, we are going to improve on the facilities, not reversing on the steps that we have taken,” he said.
