The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has denied allegations that it specifically targeted Baptist Girls Academy, Lagos, in its bid to expose and discipline institutions collecting more than the N4700 official registration fees from candidates.
In a release entitled, Re: Prof. Oloyede’s media trial of Baptist Girls Academy: The true story, signed by Dr. Fabian Benjamin, the Head, Public Affairs and Protocol, JAMB said: The attention of the Board has been drawn to some misconceptions making the rounds on the encounter of the Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, with a group of students, including some from the Baptist Girls Academy, Lagos. The board wishes to correct the erroneous impression that Baptist Girls Academy was specifically targeted by the board during the Registrar’s inspection tour.
The Registrar was on a scheduled inspection of the ongoing 2021 UTME registration exercise in the South-West. As is the tradition of all Board’s Chief Executives, he came to assess the performance of the exercise across the geopolitical zones.
On getting to Lagos, he held a press conference after which he proceeded to JKK Computer-Based Test Centre, one of the Board’s approved UTME Registration centres to assess the registration there. At JKK CBT centre, he had an interview session during which one of the journalists sought to know why some centres and perhaps schools were charging higher fees than the prescribed fee by the Board. Another wanted to know what the Board was doing to avoid the prevailing mismatch of candidates’ data. That is the essential details of one candidate being transferred to another.
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The Registrar, in his response on the collection of higher fees above the prescribed fee, said he was not aware of any large-scale extortion going on anywhere other than the exception of some elite secondary schools that are in the habit of illegitimately collecting money in the name of the Board. While the interview was ongoing, the journalists spotted a group of students and drew the attention of the Registrar to them insinuating that they could be among those involved in group registration.
Consequently, the Registrar invited them to come and meet him. He asked them how much they had paid for the UTME registration and the name of their school.
The students replied that they were from Baptist Girls Academy and that they had paid N8000 to their school for the 2021 UTME registration. He subsequently requested to meet their teacher who maintained that the school had only collected the approved fee of N4700.”
The Board reiterated that “it had always been its core policy to sanction any school that collects a dime above the approved UTME fee, particularly when such exercises are linked to the Board’s hard-earned name and integrity. It does so without any fear or favour of any religious or ethnic group.”
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