The Nation Newspaper

Tag: JAMB

  • ‘New JAMB policy is unacceptable’

    Stakeholders in the Education sector on Thursday in Ibadan, said the scrapping of   `Awaiting Result’ by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board. (JAMB) was unacceptable and not right.

    They told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the policy was not suitable and would truncate arrangements already in place.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that JAMB had on Feb. 28, announced that students would no longer be able to secure admission, while awaiting their `O’ level results.

    Prof. Andy Fadoju of the Department of Human Kinetics and Health Education, University of Ibadan, said it was unfortunate that the most-abused sector in Nigeria was the education sector.

    “That is why you find all this unstable policies because in an ideal setting, you expect to see a round peg in the right hole,’’ Fadoju said.

    According to Fadoju, there should be a smooth transition from the secondary education to the tertiary and I do not see anything wrong in that.

    He said that scrapping `Awaiting Result’ would affect the morale of candidates and it might also lead to youthful exuberance.

    “You know, most children nowadays are not patient. Their age of maturity is different and they always want to move on with the knowledge they have acquired.

    “So once there is a break for them, there is the tendency that this could lead to youthful exuberance and may also cause problems for the society,’’ he said.

    Fadoju said that as an educationist, he was not in support of the new policy as announced by JAMB.

    Mr Muyiwa Bamgbose, Executive Director, Educational Advancement Centre, Ibadan, said that there should be adequate provision by government to review strategic plans in the education sector.

    He said that though the Board (JAMB) had been clamouring for priority of old candidates over the new ones, proper and well-thought out plans must be taken and should be long term planning.

    Bamgbose, however, urged the government to give adequate attention to `A’ level education in the country, adding that right now, only 10 per cent attention was being given to `A’ level candidates in terms of for admission.

    Other parents who spoke with NAN described the new policy as “unfortunate and uncalled for’’.

    Mr Olabiyi Orekoya, said he was not surprised with the announcement.

    Orekoya  said that the Board was only looking for ways of reducing the number of candidates seeking admission into tertiary institution.

    “I really do not know what is wrong with our educational system. We continue to be at the back stage due to policies that are not sustainable,’’ he said.

    Some students who spoke with NAN said that, though, JAMB had the right to bring policies from time to time but the scrapping of `Awaiting Result’ by candidates was not right.

    Mr Stephen Ogunronbi, a part four student in the Faculty of Education, University of Ibadan, said he would have waited for one year if it was now because he was admitted while awaiting his result.

    “I would have waited for one year if now, due to this new policy,’’ Ogunronbi said.

    He, however, said that the policy had more disadvantages than advantages.

  • JAMB restructures registration platform

    JAMB restructures registration platform

    •Board scraps use of awaiting results for admission

    THE Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has restructured its registration platform to allow for only one choice of public university.
    Its Head of Information, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, who said this in a statement yesterday in Abuja, added that the new registration platform would now give candidates the opportunity of first choice, second choice, third choice and fourth choice.
    The statement added that it will no longer be most preferred, preferred, among others, as it used be.
    It said the restructuring was aimed at expanding 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”.
    The statement said: “Candidates’ first choice can be a college, university, Innovative Enterprises Institutions (IEIs) 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.
    “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, ND as their 1st choice up to the 4th choice, but can only pick a public university once.”
    The board added that it designed a Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS), where it will interface with institutions and ensure they complied with the reform.
    It said with the completion of restructuring and reforms, the board will begin sales of application document this month.
    According to the statement, candidates waiting for their O’level results will no longer be offered or recommended for admission by any institution, effective from this year.
    To achieve this, JAMB said it would insist candidates supply their result on its website during registration or later, “but before admissions begins 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’level 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.”
    The statement added that the board will ensure that a reasonable percentage of candidates who take this examination are qualified for placement in tertiary institutions.
    The registration of UTME this year, JAMB stated, will go side-by-side with Direct Entry.
    During registration, candidates’ 10 fingers will be captured using Biometric Verification Machine (BVN).
    It warned that no cyber café would be registering candidates for examination.
    “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.

  • Five jailed for selling fake JAMB forms

    Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, on Thursday said five persons have been sentenced to various prison terms for selling fake forms to unsuspecting candidates.

    He said JAMB had embarked on massive prosecution of individuals and syndicates that engaged in the sales of fake forms to let them know that it is no longer “business as usual.”

    Oloyede, who spoke at the 2017 Nigerian Academy of Letters Annual Lecture on Thursday in Abuja, said there was delay in the sales of the forms due to logistics.

    He said the board would begin sales of forms once the board had finished sanitizing the system.

    Oloyede said: “We have observed that people are selling fake forms but what we are doing is to try to sanitize the system and as soon as the sanitization is done we will start selling the forms.

    “We have arrested so many people in Abuja, Abeokuta, Ado Ekiti, Port Harcourt, Yenegoa, almost everywhere. You know bad people are evenly distributed in Nigeria.

    “We are prosecuting and some are in courts and in the last three months we have secured about five convictions. People who are sentenced; some to imprisonment, some to fine but what is important is that they will now know is not going to be business as usual.

    “We need to reassure stakeholders that those selling fake forms are gone. We are not going to sell out forms through the other process.

    “We will start the sale of the form and by May the examination will be conducted.”

     

     

  • UTME holds in May

    The Registrar, Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, on Thursday said the 2017/2018 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) will hold in May.

    Oloyede, who was speaking at the 2017 Nigerian Academy of Letters Annual Lecture in Abuja, said there was delay in the sales of the forms due to some logistics.

    He said the board eliminated the use of scratch cards because many students were victims of extortion from cybercafé attendants.

    Oloyede said the board was putting in place strategies that would ensure hitch-free conduct of the examinations.

    He added that the board had consulted with relevant examination bodies to ensure there was no clash in any examination.

    The JAMB chief said, “We have observed that people are selling fake forms but what we are doing is to try to sanitise the system and as soon as that is done we will start selling the forms.

    “In any case, JAMB has invited other examination bodies, there will be no clash but we want to hold the exams when it is appropriate.

    “You also know that if we conduct the examination in March, the result will come out almost immediately but the result cannot be used until August or September.

    “So, we have to keep the results and that will give room for people to be thinking it’s possible to upgrade.

    “But, if we conduct our examination very close to when the result is needed the possibility or perceptions for upgrading will not be there.

    “We need to reassure stakeholders that those selling fake forms are gone. We are not going to sell out forms through the other process.”

    NAN

  • 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.

  • Imo tops JAMB applications, records 103,122 in 2016

    Imo tops JAMB applications, records 103,122 in 2016

    The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Imo topped the number of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) applications with 103,122 in 2016.

    Thie figure is reflected in an NBS report on “ JAMB Admitted Candidates by State and Gender within Faculty’’ released on Monday in Abuja.

    According to the report, three states – Imo, Osun, Oyo – top the list of those with the highest number of JAMB applications in 2016, following the applications of statistics by state of origin.

    The report stated that Osun recorded the  second highest applications with 83,569 applications, while Oyo recorded 81,630 applications.

    Meanwhile, the report stated that Yobe, Zamfara and FCT recorded lowest applications with 12,268; 7,303 and 5,089 respectively.

    In 2015, the report listed Imo, Delta and Oyo as the top three states with highest applications.

    “JAMB received 111,066 applications form, out of which 28,883 were admitted for admission, representing 26 per cent of the students admitted in the year.

    “JAMB received 101, 213 applications from Delta, out of which 26,462 were admitted, representing 28 per cent of students in the year under review.

    “Also, JAMB received 87,180 applications from Oyo state in which 24,652 were admitted in the year.’’

    The report, however, stated that top three states with lowest applications were Sokoto (12,877), Zamfara (6,304) and FCT with 1,725 applications.

    It stated that JAMB received a total 11. 7 million applications in 6 years from 2010 to 2016. (NAN)

  • JAMB decries activities of fraudulent websites

    JAMB decries activities of fraudulent websites

    The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), on Thursday in Abuja, decried activities of some fraudsters using fake websites to dupe unsuspecting public.

    Prof. Ish-aq Oloyede, JAMB Registrar/Chief Executive, in a statement, said such websites were being use to solicit payments for malpractice services in the forthcoming 2017 JAMB examination.

    “Special attention is drawn to the continuous advertisement soliciting for payments for malpractice services for the forthcoming 2017 JAMB examination by; www.askjamb.com,’’ he said.
    He added that the website had continued to advertise help for candidates with JAMB 2017 live questions and planned malpractice offers to candidates including help within the examination hall.
    He, therefore, called on relevant authorities to ensure that the websites were brought down and their perpetuators brought to justice.

    According to Oloyede, JAMB`s attention was drawn to the existence of such fraudulent websites in January.

    He added that the board had, however, worked with the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to suspend the domain of some of the websites.

    He thanked NITDA for taking swift action, but added that there was still much to be done.

    “We would like to note that the following domains remain active: www.jambresults.org.ng, www.askjamb.com and www.jamborgng.info,’’ he said.
    Oloyede urged the public to be careful of the websites, saying that they do not belong to JAMB. (NAN)

  • JAMB to begin sale of 2017 UTME forms

    JAMB to begin sale of 2017 UTME forms

    •Board expects 1.7m candidates to apply

    THE Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) yesterday said it will soon begin the sale of application forms for this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
    Its Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, said an estimated 1.7 million candidates are expected to register and sit for the Computer-Based Test(CBT).
    He added that the board was also increasing the capacity of the CBT centres to maximise their effectiveness to examine more candidates within a given date.
    He spoke at the Green Legacy, Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta while fielding questions from reporters after a meeting with stakeholders on information technology being introduced into the board’s examination to make it less stressful to candidates.
    According to Oloyede, the board was working with the possibility of conducting a “mock examination” to test its preparedness with the new technology and also examine some people that were eager to know their competence with the JAMB examination.
    He noted that the stakeholders’ meeting was organised to enable people make inputs into the new ICT facilities and critique it before putting them into use.
    His words: “What we are doing appears to be suitable to majority of our stakeholders. It is a surprise to us that we are apprehensive of what we wanted to do that maybe we are going to create problem. We are more confident to go along with the sale of the form for 2017 UTME examination.
    “I believed that Nigeria is ripe for this. Nigeria is more advanced than some of these countries. At least, we have three or four countries that are observing our examination and they want to go the way of the conduct of the examination.
    “We are expecting 1.7 million candidates and we want to make sure we satisfy these candidates within a week or thereabouts. That is why we are increasing the capacity of the Computer-Based Test centres to be able to examine more candidates within a given date
    “If we are talking about 1.5 million candidates, it means that in a given day, about 60,000 or 70,000 candidates will take the examination.
    “We have invited stakeholders to critique the process because we don’t want to go in the wrong direction. We are creating some ICT facilities and we want our stakeholders, prospective candidates, respected scholars, institutions and civil societies to come together and critique what we are doing, so that we can be sure before we go too far in a wrong direction.
    “This is with a view of harvesting good ideas that could improve what we are doing. We thought we are coming here to get dismantled all we have put together. But what we are having are cheers that we can do it this way, or amend it that way.”
    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 fightback by interests that will be trampled upon.
    “We are going to be as sincere as possible in the direction we are going. We are going to be as flexible as humanly possible. We are not promising hitch-free examination.”

  • JAMB may conduct mock exam

    JAMB may conduct mock exam

    The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is considering conducting mock exercise ahead of the examination.

    Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, the Registrar of the Board disclosed the plan while fielding questions from journalists at the Information and Communication Technology Retreat organised for stakeholders on Tuesday in Abeokuta, Ogun.

    Oloyede said although  he could not guarantee a hitch-free examination, the  innovations being put in place “will send some illegal operators, who are defrauding candidates in the past, out of business.’’

    He said the board would not be deterred in its mission to serve its candidates better this year.

    “Frankly, I cannot promise a hitch-free examination because we are testing certain things.

    “We are changing certain things; we want to question the statuesquo  and we expect a fight back by interests that will be trampled upon,’’ the registrar said.

    He explained that the board would be as sincere as possible.

    “We are going to be as flexible as humanly possible; we are not promising hitch free examination,’’ he said.

    Oloyede noted that the board had envisaged that there would be hitches, but that  these  would not be insurmountable.

    According to him, rather than promising hitch-free examination, the board promises a direction that all will be pleased with.

    He said that the major objective of the retreat was for stakeholders to critique the board’s processes, “because we will not want to continue in the wrong direction’’.

    Oloyede said the board was planning to create new ICT facilities and  stakeholders  such as  prospective candidates, scholars, institutions and civil society groups  were brought  together to critique it.

  • JAMB and needless confusion

    JAMB and needless confusion

    THE past few weeks have been saturated with fake news of the sale of JAMB forms, with many candidates fleeced of their money. The reason is that unlike in previous years when the sale of forms began as early as November for an examination that held between February and March, this year’s exercise has witnessed an extended and apprehensive delay. The delay, it seems, is consequent upon the change of leadership in JAMB and the new management’s desire to do things differently. It is possible that the new dates and methods being proposed could bring enormous relief to parents and their children, as well as the many examination authorities in the country. But, given the change in JAMB leadership at a crucial and demanding time in the examination body’s calendar, it would have been much better if the new leadership went ahead with previous plans for the 2017/2018 session while it took time in preparing for the revolutionary changes it had in mind for the 2018/2019 academic session.

    Candidates and their parents have enough reasons to be apprehensive about the examination proper, given that the sale of forms itself is so enmeshed in delays and confusion. Reforms are good and may in fact be healthy for progress. But timing is also crucial. Before the previous management transited from pencil and paper format, it allowed not only enough gestation time, it also embarked on sufficient enlightenment programmes to ensure the examinations did not miscarry. Even then, there were still teething problems. It is expected that the new management, having caused this needless and apprehensive delay, will moderate its appetite for revolutionary changes in the conduct of the examination proper.