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Tag: Dr Fabian Benjamin

  • No cut – off marks yet for UTME – JAMB

    No cut – off marks yet for UTME – JAMB

    The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) said on Tuesday it is yet to release cut-off marks for placements into the nation’s tertiary institutions for 2017 academic year.

    The Head, Media and Information, JAMB, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, made the clarification in a statement in Lagos.

    He said the JAMB committee responsible for the determination of cut-off marks is yet to meet on the matter.

    The JAMB spokesman said it is in the best interest of candidates and other critical stakeholders to ignore cut-off marks for various courses currently paraded by some people.

    `”We want to appeal to all candidates to jettison such speculations and engage themselves in more meaningful ventures that would add value to their future,’’ he said.

    Benjamin said results of the just concluded 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) had since been released, with few others still being previewed.

    ”We want to appeal to Nigerians to understand that such candidates whose results are being previewed may not necessarily have participated in any malpractice.

    “But rather, centres where they sat for the examination had issues during the conduct of examination.

    ”These issues were reflected on the CCTV footage and this suggests why they must be carefully investigated before releasing such results,” he said.

    NAN

  • We didn’t deduct UTME candidates’ marks – JAMB

    We didn’t deduct UTME candidates’ marks – JAMB

    The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on Friday dismissed reports that it deducted marks of candidates that sat for this year Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

    It advised the candidates to disregard the rumour.

    The Head of JAMB Information and Media, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, dismissed the reports in a statement in Abuja.

    According to Benjamin, the rumour was false, devilish and a ploy to cause disaffection among candidates who participated in the UTME.

    He said, “It is no longer news that all our centres have CCTV camera and we have watched all proceedings at the Computer Based Test (CBT) centres across the nation.

    “Those involved in any infraction will be sanctioned in accordance with the provision of the Examination Malpractice Act.

    “The board has not deducted any marks from any candidate and is not contemplating doing that as it is not a condition for sanction in any of the provisions of the law against malpractice.

    “Again, we call on all candidates to be mindful of fraudulent characters who will send misleading information to create panic and take advantage of the situation to defraud them.”

    Benjamin said the examinations had so far been conducted for 1,698,835 candidates, adding that the remaining 19,950 would sit for the examination on Saturday.

     

  • UTME: JAMB asks candidates to ignore rumour of marks deduction

    UTME: JAMB asks candidates to ignore rumour of marks deduction

    The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has asked candidates who wrote the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) to disregard any information of deduction of marks by the board.

    Its spokesperson, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, in a statement on Friday in Abuja, said the rumour is false, devilish and intended to cause disaffection among the candidates.

    He said any candidate with any infraction would be sanctioned in accordance with the provision of the examination malpractice Act.

    The statement reads: “The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has urge all candidates who participated in the 2017 to disregard any information being circulated by mischief makers on the deduction of marks by the Board. This rumour is false, devilish and intended to cause disaffection among the candidates.

    “The Board has not deducted any  marks from any candidate and  is not contemplating doing that as it is not a condition for sanction in any of the provisions of the law against malpractice.

    “Again, we call on all candidates to be mindful of fraudulent characters who will send misleading informations to create panic and take advantage of the situation to defraud candidates.

    “The Board has also noted that some candidates who could not check their results are being told that their results are not out because they are owing JAMB some money. This is a lie and candidates are advised not to pay any money to anybody as their results are send to their mails and also on our website:www.jamb.org.ng. Candidates are to login with their registration number or email address to print.

    “The Board will be concluding the 2017 examination on Saturday 20th May, 2017. The Board has conducted examination for a  total of  1,698,835 candidates and the remaining 19950 candidates will be sitting for the last day on Saturday 20th May, 2017. The results of examination conducted are released for candidates to check except for today Saturday 20th May,  2017.  Any candidate with any challenge should not hesitate to contact the Board or check our website for information and numbers.”

     

     

  • UTME: JAMB urges candidates to crosscheck data

    UTME: JAMB urges candidates to crosscheck data

    The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has urged prospective candidates for its Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) to crosscheck the data on their registration forms for the last time on May 6.

    The board’s Head of Media and Information, Dr Fabian Benjamin, made the call in an interview with the News Agency if Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Lagos.

    The call comes ahead of the 2017 UTME scheduled for May 13 across 633 centres nationwide.

    NAN reports that registration of candidates for the examination was closed by the board by 12 midnight on Friday, May 5.

    According to Benjamin, the call for the crosschecking of data by prospective candidates was to ensure total inclusiveness.

    He added that the board intended to ensure that no candidate was left out during the examination due to one reason or the other.

    “All candidates who desire to do any change on their registration details are urged to do so today as the platform closes finally by 9 p.m. of Saturday May 6.

    “We are giving all the candidates the last chance to ensure that everyone is carried along and provided with equal opportunity.

    “We also want to avoid a situation whereby candidates will have cause to complain of one incident or the other just before the commencement of the examination,’’ Benjamin said.

  • UTME candidates endorse Remita for forms purchase

    Students seeking admission into various higher institutions across the country are heaving a sigh of relief with the introduction of Remita for the purchase of their Universal Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) forms.

    This followed a recent statement by the Head of Public Relations, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Dr. Fabian Benjamin, that “aside the banks and NIPOST, candidates can now purchase the pins through Remita.”

    He added that the inclusion of Remita is to further cushion the challenges faced by students.

    “Candidates can now purchase the pin for registration from the comfort of their homes,” he said.

    Speaking on the development, a UTME candidate based in Akure, Ayanfe Adelolu, who recently paid with Remita, described his experience as convenient:

    He said, “All I did was to visit JAMB website, log in with my registered profile, click the ‘UTME Examination’ under the Sales of Form feature, and then select Remita.”

    “From there, I went on to choose how I wanted to pay.”

    Another candidate said she paid with her mobile phone using Remita’s app:

    “When I got to the page where I was asked about how I want to pay, I saw that I could pay with an app which I had heard of before. So, I downloaded it and used the Pay RRR features to pay,” the candidate stated.

    In an earlier statement, JAMB had blamed cybercafés for making “information gathering, processing and administration of examination cumbersome as records and data of candidates are distorted.”

    With Remita as a new e-PIN vendor, students will now be able to complete payment from their mobile phones even without patronising cyber cafés.

    Already, JAMB has registered 600,000 candidates for the 2017 UTME across the country. With the addition of Remita to other e-PIN vendors, the payment process is now much easier for candidates.

  • JAMB scraps use of awaiting results for admission

    JAMB scraps use of awaiting results for admission

    Candidates waiting for their O’level results will no longer be offered or recommended for admission by any institution effective from this year (2017), Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has said.

    The board also said it has concluded all restructuring and reforms and is now ready to begin sales of its application document in March.

    The organization in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja by its Head of Information, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, said the restructuring is to expand the opportunities available to candidates as almost all the public universities do not consider candidates on the second choice list because they hardly exhaust their first choice.

    JAMB said it took the decision because it found out that many institutions had offered candidates admission in the past on merit only for them to discover that such candidates do not have qualified O’level results for the admission and had to delete and start the process all over again.

    The organization said it would ensure that no candidate is recommended for admission without his/her O’levels result being supplied.

    To achieve this, JAMB said it would insist that candidates supply their result on its website during registration or later, but before admissions commences for them to be considered for admissions.

    This, the board said, would allow only qualified candidates to be considered for admissions.

    The statement said: “The summary is that no candidate will be admitted with awaiting result.

    In the cause of conducting admission exercise, many institutions have admitted candidates on merit only for them to discover that such candidates do not have qualified O’levels results or the right combination for admission and had to delete and start the process all over again. With this, they would have denied other qualified candidates the opportunities for admissions.

    “This we are addressing by ensuring that no candidate is henceforth recommended without his O’levels result being supplied. To achieve this, JAMB will insist that candidates supply their result on its website during registration or later, but before admissions commences for them to be considered for admissions. We believe this will allow only qualified candidates to be considered for admissions.

    “Because we need a different and progressive result that will position Nigerian educational system in an enviable height in the comity of nations, then we must do things differently. The Board is poised to see that a reasonable percentage of candidates who take this examination and are qualified find placement in tertiary institutions.

    “Candidates and their parents are also to note that the Board has restructured the registration platform to allow for only one choice of Public University. The new registration platform will now be first choice, second choice, third choice and fourth choice and not most preferred, preferred etc as it was.

    “Candidates’ first choice can be a College, University, Innovative Enterprises Institutions or Polytechnic/Monotechnic. However, if a candidate makes a Public University his first choice, he will not have any public University to choose for 2nd, 3rd and 4th choice. He will have on the remaining three choices, a College, a Polytechnic, Private University and IEI’S. However, candidates for the 2017 UTME can now select NCE (College) or ND (Polytechnic/Monotechnic) as their 1st choice up to 3rd choice and the 4th IEI. They can select the IEI (Innovative Enterprise Institution, ND) as their 1st choice up to the 4th choice, but can only pick a public university once.”

    The board said it had designed a Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) where it would interface with institutions and ensure they complied with the reform.

    “We sincerely appreciate the patience exhibited by Nigerians in allowing us take time to add value to the services we have been offering to Nigerians for over three decades.

    “We have designed a Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) where the Board will interface with the institutions and ensure the compliance of this reform.

    “The registration of UTME this year will go side by side with the  Direct Entry and during registration, candidates 10 fingers are to be captured using Biometric Verification Machine (BVN).

    “Again, we want to inform candidates that no cyber café will be registering candidates for our examination. On no account should any candidate patronize any cybercafé for our registration. It is important to note that the Board will not deploy the use of any scratch card for the 2017 UTME registration exercise,” the statement added.

  • JAMB issues new guidelines to CBT operators

    The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has issued a fresh standardization rules to licensed operators of Computer Based Test (CBT) centres ahead of the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) examination.

    In the new rule contained in a document obtained by The Nation on Wednesday in Abuja, CBT Centre operators are required to upgrade their facilities to accommodate minimum of 250 candidates.

    This is against previous practice where CBT centres operated under different capacities, with tendency for manual distribution of candidates, prejudice and sharp practices by operators, local thugs and disloyal interns.

    According to the document, JAMB and proprietors of CBT centres agreed on the issues of standardization of all CBT centres, in terms of capacity, equipment, materials, competent human resources and security appliances including Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) systems.

    JAMB, in the document, warned that failure to comply with the new set of rules would result in automatic disqualification of the operator and outright withdrawal of its license.

    In this regard, the board has begun an upgrade of all its 11 CBT centres across Nigeria from their previous capacity to 250 as stipulated by the new rules.

    Also, the four new CBT centers built by the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) have been upgraded to minimum standard.

    JAMB spokesman, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, said the recent decision by the management to install CCTV cameras in all CBT centres was to curtail examination malpractices by closely monitoring examination activities in all the centres.

    “In order to eliminate unnecessary waste and stress involved in travelling to Bwari, the Board’s headquarters in Abuja, for one issue or the other, the Board has successfully automated the following services: late registration, change of course/institution, printing of admission letter, printing of result slip and correction of data,” Dr. Benjamin said.

  • UTME 2017: JAMB meets with CBT centre owners

    UTME 2017: JAMB meets with CBT centre owners

    Arrangements have been concluded to have an interaction between the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and owners of Computer Based Test (CBT) centres in the country ahead of the 2017 UTME.

    This statement was made by the board’s Head, Media and Information, Dr Fabian Benjamin, made the disclosure in a statement made available to journalists on Monday in Lagos.

    According to the statement, the meeting which comes up on Tuesday at the University of Lagos is to fine tune all areas of challenges geared towards conducting a hitch-free examination in 2017.

    It said that the meeting would determine the number of centres to be used for 2017 all CBT Unified Tertiary Matriculation Board (UTME) exercise.

    “These are centres that must have a minimum of 250 and above terminals (computers).

    “We will not hesitate to disqualify any centre that falls short of the requirements,’’ the statement said.

    “We will equally not compromise on the selection of these centres as they will fully be responsible for our registration and examinations and other related responsibilities that they will be saddled with from time to time as we introduce new measures.’’

    It added that the board decided to come face to face with owners of these centre to ensure it got first-hand information on the challenges they were faced with in the course of the examinations.

    “As partners in progress, we need to sit down on a round table and tell each other the truth so as to get to the root of all the hiccups.

    “We should all feel concerned even if it was just one centre that had challenges or hitches during the conduct of the last examination.

    “Nigerians expect a lot from us and we must strive not to fail them.

    “We are looking at strengthening what was done holistically to improve on the previous exercises,’’ the statement quoted the board’s Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede as saying.

    It added that the board was committed to giving Nigerians globally accepted standard in the conduct of the examinations.

    The statement said that the board would commence the sale of application forms soon and urged prospective candidates not to patronise any self-acclaimed agent as the board had not and would not appoint any.

    It urged candidates to always visit the board’s website for information.

    The statement noted that in a few months, the board had been working tirelessly on processes that were connected to the conduct of the examination.

    It added that the board had taken stock of all the challenges that were recorded during the 2016 exercise, especially CBT centre related issues.

    It said the board had resolved to give every Nigerian child desirous of tertiary education a level playing ground to compete for the available space in these tertiary institutions.

    “We are mindful of the fact that any child that writes in a dysfunctional centre is at disadvantage.

    “All candidates must have same conditions, atmosphere and working facilities,’’ the statement said.

  • JAMB yet to start sale of 2017 UTME form- Registrar

    JAMB yet to start sale of 2017 UTME form- Registrar

    The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has urged the public to disregard the speculations that it had commenced the sales of its application documents for 2017 UTME by some group of persons.

    The board’s Head, Media and Information, Dr Fabian Benjamin, debunked the speculations in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Lagos.

    According to the statement, the Registrar of the examination body, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has expressed disappointment with the development and calls on innocent Nigerians not to fall prey.

    “The public is hereby notified that JAMB has not commenced the sales of its application documents as advertised by some unknown and desperate persons.

    “They are to disregard any website or individuals claiming to be in possession of these documents and offering same for sales.

    “We are putting finishing touches to innovation and changes to ease the challenges associated with the procedure of application for the 2017 all Computer-Based Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

    “We are looking forward to announcing the commencement of the sales of these documents very soon,’’ the statement quoted the registrar as saying.

    The statement advised the public to feel free to contact the board for clarification on its activities through its website or contact numbers whenever they were in doubt.

    It noted that Oleyede had announced his willingness to open the board’s door to the public to make valuable contributions and also report any act against the board’s pedigree by either the staff or the board’s development partners.

    “We must all be interested in what happens in JAMB, as it is too important to be ignored.

    “Help us to watch over where our eyes cannot get to, hear where our ears fail and be our police where our presence is insufficient,’’ the statement said.

    It added that the Registrar had restated the board’s determination to ensure that nobody was spared in sustaining and advancing the credibility of the board.

    Meanwhile, the board has hailed the judgment of the National Industrial Court sustaining the sack of one of its former staff, one Cletus Uloko in 2015.

    According to the statement, Uloko’s services were terminated following acts of misconduct contrary to civil service rule.

    It said Uloko was sacked because he was wrongfully in procession of over 120 e-slip of candidates without authorisation and justification.

    The statement explained that upon the development, Uloko was queried and on responding, his explanation was not satisfactory to the board.

    It further said that the board then constituted a disciplinary committee which recommended that Uloko ran foul and breached all the extant civil service laws and therefore sacked him.

    According to the statement, based on the termination of the appointment Uloko approached the National Industrialist Court to seek for redress, compensation and reinstatement.

    The statement explained that in a notification of termination of suit made available by the JAMB legal team to the board said: “We, by this letter, hereby notify the board that final judgment had been delivered on the matter on Sept. 27’’.

    It said the letter further said that the court dismissed the claimant’s suit.

  • JAMB set to upload names of successful candidates

    JAMB set to upload names of successful candidates

    The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says it will soon commence the uploading names of candidates who have been offered admission into tertiary institution on their website.

    The board’s Head, Media and Information, Dr Fabian Benjamin, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Lagos.

    According to him, the board will ensure that Nigerian children are not unjustly denied admission in any institution of their choice.

    He said that the names of candidates that had satisfactorily met the admission rules and regulations of the institutions and that of the Federal Government would be uploaded soon.

    “We have just concluded a five-day Technical Committee meeting on Admission that started on Aug. 22 at the Bayero University Kano.

    “A lot was deliberated upon and at the end everything came out successful.

    “We have ensured that the admissions are done in line with the set rules and regulations as provided by the Federal Government and the various institutions.

    “We are aware that the function of admission of candidates is solely the job of the Senates of institutions and what we do as a board is to see the guidelines used in admitting the candidates and ensure ratification.

    “We are passionate about ensuring that no candidate that meets any of the admission rules and guidelines as provided by both the institution and government is denied admission for whatever reason,’’ he said.

    The Registrar of the board, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, had at the opening of the meeting said that admissions would be carried out based on guidelines approved for each institution by their respective proprietors.

    He also said that preference expressed for the institutions and courses by the candidates would also be followed.