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Tag: utme

  • JAMB fixes UTME for May, scraps scratchcard

    JAMB fixes UTME for May, scraps scratchcard

    Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Registrar Prof. Ishaq Oloyede yesterday said the much-awaited Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) will hold in May as part of steps to check malpractices.

    He also said the agency had handed over 10 officials to the police for investigation in connection with fraud associated with sales of scratch cards.

    Prof. Oloyede said JAMB had eliminated the use of scratch cards because UTME candidates were being extorted.

    He said: “For the 2017 UTME, we have taken a decision to commence the sale of the form soon. Within the next two weeks, we will be out. The reason for this is that we are making all arrangements that ought to be made. We have changed the process of payment, no more scratch card selling. We need to put the right architecture in place and we have put this in place.

    “The examination will be coming up later than usual. This is to make sure we take into consideration the interest of the students. We are going to conduct the UTME in May. It will not clash with any SSCE examinations

    “I did not sit here or my management did not fix the date. We sat down with all examination bodies with their timetables and we agreed to create this window.”

    He said the new timing of the UTME was to check any form of malpractice, especially upgrading of results.

    He said:  “Normally, we conduct our examinations around March and the results will be ready within two to three days. But when do we need the results? It is always between July and August. This gives room for all forms of suspicion. If you go on the net, you will see people claiming that they could help candidates to upgrade their results because the results are lying fallow between March and July.

    “Now we want to shorten the period in such a way that the time between the examination and when the results will be used will be very short. There will be no opportunity for anybody to even dream of upgrading results.

    “We are also using that opportunity to communicate with other Examination bodies like WAEC, NECO and NABTEB to ensure that we do not make our examinations mutually exclusive. Somebody is taking WAEC examinations, he wants to take JAMB but in some cases due to clash of timetable, he wants to sacrifice one for the other.

    “So, we have harmonized in such a way that the period we are going to use for our examination, all other examination bodies will not have examinations during the period.

    Asked how many candidates will sit for UTME this year, the Registrar said the agency is expecting about 1.7million.

    “That figure (1.7m candidates) was last year’s figure and we do not expect less this year. We expect about 1.5million candidates for UTME and about 200,000 and 300,000 candidates for Direct Entry. That was how we arrived at the figure and that is the figure we are also expecting, “he said.

    “I or the management will not promise a hitch-free examination because when you are doing the type of re-engineering we are doing, you cannot say that there will be no hitches. But we believe that we are on top of it and whatever problem arises, we will solve it.

    “Everybody will however have fair treatment and everybody will be well-treated. This is what I can assure Nigerians.

    Prof. Oloyede confirmed that 10 officials of JAMB were handed over to the Police over scratch cards-related fraud.

    Oloyede went on: “What we have done is to fine tune what is being done to make our services better for the public. We have taken some very painful decisions like elimination of scratch cards. We know that some people make their living from sale of scratch cards but that is not the type of living we want to encourage because it is extortion.

    “They buy the cards from our staff and they sell at exorbitant price to the users. The scratch card has a particular amount of N1, 000 or N2, 500 but they up selling the cards for four to five times the price. Apart from that, scratch card has left to massive corruption in the system.

    “As I’m talking to you now, 10 members of our staff are with the police. We have handed over to the police for one corrupt practice or the other related to scratch cards.”

  • 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.

  • 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 to scrap scratch card for UTME

    JAMB to scrap scratch card for UTME

    JOINT Admission and Matriculations Board (JAMB) Registrar Prof. Ishaq Oloyode said yesterday the board would abolish scratch cards to register for and check results, with effect from 2017.

    Oloyode, who spoke at the National Executive Council meeting of the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) in Abuja, said students would generate a PIN number for themselves from their phone or computers before registering for examinations.

    He said the board would not support a situation where banks and vendors hoard the cards, only to sell them at a higher price.

    The registrar challenged NASU to get involved in the ownership of Computer-Based Testing Centres, saying those who own the centres are businessmen merely exploiting students.

    He added that if academic-based stakeholders, such as NASU, own CBT centres, the board will be confident  the examinations will be conducted without hitch.

    Also speaking at the event, Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC) Prof. Abubakar Rasheed said the commission would build a system in line with global challenges.

    He assured the union the commission would address issues regarding its agreement with the Federal Government, adding that he has met with pro-chancellors on  the matter.

    The executive secretary said he would meet with vice chancellors of the about 140 public and private universities and other institutions affiliated to them, and state the commission’s position, which will be forwarded to the government.

    Rasheed noted that the commission would take submissions from all unions in the universities so that its memo to the minister of Education will capture every issue.

    He said: “I will lead a team of NUC management to a meeting towards the end of next week with vice chancellors of federal universities, then vice chancellors of state universities, vice chancellors of private universities, heads of institutions affiliated to universities to discuss challenges confronting the university system.

    “We will also discuss challenges inhibiting the implementation of the 2009 Federal Government/unions agreement. Within the next two weeks of concluding the discussions, I will raise a memo drawing the attention of the minister of Education to the agreement”.

    However, NASU’s General Secretary Peters Adeyemi told reporters that “government has not demonstrated the will to implement the agreement. Government is a continuum and agreements are binding on successive governments, and this government must know that. The labour unions in universities are unhappy with the way things are going in the system.

    “We think the executive secretary of NUC inherited this liability, and as a responsible union, we needed to give him an opportunity to address this problem holistically, and we think we should give him some time to see if there would be results. The result of his engagements would determine how quickly industrial action can be prevented or otherwise.”

    Adeyemi hinted that the unions may not give a lengthy time for declaration of industrial action saying  “we have waited for so long, and we are not willing to wait too long again. The government must do the needful before crisis would start in the universities, lest Nigerians say we have started again when we declare strike.

    ‘’We are calling on Nigerians to help us beg this government that our patience is running out.”

    He berating government for citing economic recession for default in the payment of salaries, pointing out that such statements show insensitivity on the part of the ruling class.

    He said: “It is wicked for anybody in government to say justify non-payment of salaries on recession. Who caused us to be in recession? Is it workers? No. We are pushed to where we are by the ruling class irrespective of the political parties they belong. It is the collusion of the ruling class that put us where we are.”

     

     

     

     

     

  • UTME ban: VC warns about scammers

    The Vice Chancellor of the University of Medical Sciences (UNIMED) in Ondo, Ondo State, Prof Friday Okonofua, said no university would abide by the new policy of the Federal Government on scrapping the post Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME).

    Okonofua, who claimed the government did not consult Vice-Chancellors before making the pronouncement, said such step would only encourage scammers in the admission process.

    The VC spoke at a briefing organised to launch the Friends of UNIMED Fund (FUF) held at the university conference hall.

    “The government should not introduce policies that would encourage corruption in the education sector,” Okonufua warned.

    He said one of the challenges facing tertiary institutions in the country is inadequate funding.  He added that institutions that seek global excellence must explore alternative methods of funding.

    He noted that the new university has up to 10 different fund raising strategies, one of which is the FUFs.

    “The goal of the institution is to attract one million faithful friends, who make donations of at least N1,000 each. This will amount to about N1billion each year, enough to embark on major developmental project each year for the university,” Okonofua said.

    As a reward, the VC said donors would be included in the roll call and honours of friends that will be published from time to time; mentioned as donors in any project to be supported with proceeds of the fund; and regularly receive information about the university.

  • UNILAG denies post-UTME screening rumours

    UNILAG denies post-UTME screening rumours

    Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Prof Rahamon Bello, has debunked rumours that the institution has begun screening for admission.

    He told reporters at the office that the university was awaiting guidelines from the Federal Ministry of Education before starting the admission process.

    “We are yet to really conclude on admission process cos govt asked us to wait for a guideline. Definitely there will be screening but we’re waiting for the guideline,” he said.

    The university’s admission office has also put out a disclaimer in the institution’s internal bulletin, Information Flash, warning prospective students and their parents to ignore information about cut-off marks from sources other than the university website.

    The statement reads: “The University of Lagos is yet to commence the 2016/2017 admission exercise and consequently has not released any cut-off marks or post-UTME advertisement.

    “All prospective 2016/2017 UTME and Direct Entry candidates that chose University of Lagos as their first choice should regularly visit the website (www.unilag.edu.ng) and click on admissions.unilag.edu.ng for information.”

    There had been rumours on the social media that UNILAG had fixed UTME cut-off points and started the screening process.

     

  • Group commends FG on scrap of Post UTME

    Group commends FG on scrap of Post UTME

    A right group, Stand Up Nigeria, at the weekend commended the Federal Government for scrapping the Post Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) by institutions for candidates seeking admission into tertiary institutions.

    The group stated that the post UTME screening by higher institutions was also a loophole for corruption that allowed staffs of the institutions to admit preferred candidates by technically voiding the UMTE scores.

    The group hailed the government’s decision as a welcome development, adding that the move would boost the anti-corruption fight in the education sector as it will end the generation of revenue that does not get to the government coffers.

    Its Secretary General, Sunday Attah, in a statement on Sunday in Abuja, stated that most institutions have turned the exercise to a corrupt means of impoverishing innocent candidates.

    He described the Post UMTE as an exploitative practice to “extort admission seekers under the guise of screening them for competence.”

    The statement said: “We therefore see the scrapping of this controversial examination as a boost to the anti-corruption fight in the education sector as it will end the generation of revenue that does not get to the government coffers.”

    Attah also commended the Registrar of the joint admission and  matriculation board (JAMB), Professor Dibu Ojerinde, and his team for bringing about the change that restored the credibility of the examination body.

    He said: “We all know the state JAMB was in before Professor Ojerinde stepped in to revamp and reposition the place. Today, the confidence of the government is such that it was able to argue that there should be no need for Universities to conduct internal examinations to determine the fate of candidates seeking admissions because of the absolute confidence in JAMB.

    The Minister of Education also confirmed that JAMB has built a level of confidence in terms of conducting the UTME.

    “We know that those who favour the Post UMTE test will soon mount a campaign for its sustenance or reintroduction. The influential parents who must manipulate the admission process for their children, owners of miracle examination centres, admission racketeering cabals in tertiary institutions are a few of those that we know we put pressure on the authorities to reverse this laudable directive. But we want to put them on notice that Nigerians will not accept a return to writing Post UMTE test now that JAMB is perfecting the Computer Based Test (CBT) that renders it unnecessary to the extent that the government did the needful by scrapping it.”

    He urged Prof. Ojerinde, to consolidate on the changes he has brought to JAMB, saying he should disregard detractors who think their source of dubious wealth is being threatened by the examination body that has brought global best practice to Nigeria’s education sector.

    He appealed to the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, to put machinery in motion to expand the tertiary education system to be able to handle more intakes, saying this will reduce the pressure on the limited available admission spaces.

    According to Attah, this was what was exploited to introduce the Post UMTE.

    He said if the competition to get admission space continues to be fierce, opportunists will again devise a means to exploit candidates.

    He urged the Ministry of Education to take steps to monitor compliance with its directive whether in public institutions or in the privately owned schools to ensure that the Post UMTE was not reintroduced under new names or procedures.

  • How to pass UTME, by educationist

    How to pass UTME, by educationist

    The first hurdle, which many secondary school leavers find difficult to scale is the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).

    The failure rate of students in this examination has soared in recent years, particularly since the JAMB introduced computer-based examination.

    But  the Mandate Private School (MPS) Chief Learning Officer, Akesan, Lagos, Rev. Sunday Attah, said this needs not be so.

    He said as far back as 2008, MPS introduced the CBT and made e-learning compulsory from basic to SS3.

    “I must quickly say that the reason for the failure of many students in the examination is their lack of exposure to computer from secondary schools. Expectedly, such students will lose self-confidence in the examination hall. Any student who is jittery in the examination hall as a result of his or her inability to operate computer will fail woefully,” he said.

    He continued: “The first step we took was to transform our SS1-SS3 classes to e- learning classrooms. Each of the students has laptop and teachers’ notes are transferred to students’ laptops through wireless devices. We have given ourselves a time frame to introduce the intensive ICT (Information and Communications Technology) education to our primary section, which will make pupils from Primary 1 to SS3 computer literate and internet friendly. These pupils and students are taught by competent computer teachers in the use of word processing, multimedia, internet, e-mail, desktop publishing, networking and computer aided designs,” Attah added.

    Attah further shed more light on the step the management of the school took to guard against examination malpractices.

    His words: “Since 2007, we stopped registering external candidates for SSCE.The reason is that we do not know the academic background or the strength of these external candidates, and whether they are morally upright or not. The decision was to prevent examination fraudin the school.”

    He further disclosed that the school’s intolerance for malpractice has instilled in the students the culture of self-reliance, hard work and academic excellence.

    Attah, who doubles as the proprietor, expressed his dissatisfaction with the high taxes levied on private schools by governments.

    His words: “Akesan community where the school is located, is not a high brow area. As a result, we cannot afford to charge high fees because most of our parents are average parents. Yet, we do our best to provide qualitative education. The government should slash these taxes because education is a social service which both the government and the private sector must ensure is of high standard.

    “The reduction of these levies is important so that owners of private schools will have enough funds to pay their workers as well as equip their schools,” he said.

  • Let UTME hold in July, says KC ex-principal

    A former principal of King’s College, Lagos, Otunba Dele Olapeju, has urged the Federal Government to fix the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) for July after the Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO).

    In a letter to the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, and the Minister of State for Education Prof Anthony Onwuka, Olapeju said the timing of the examination disrupts the academic calendar of secondary schools. He said holding the examination anytime other than July makes the SS3 pupils who register for the examination to miss classes.

    He said: “As Principal of King’s College, Lagos for six sessions, I had relentlessly advocated at every given opportunity that the timing of UTME was wrong and a gross disservice to the SS3 pupils, who account for more than 60 per cent of the candidates. But the arguments posited in my official correspondences to the ministry did not meet any favourable consideration.

    “Since the introduction of UTME and its conduct in either March or April every year, final year students of our secondary schools have been at the receiving end. They are made to skip classes searching different towns and countries for examinations centres either for UTME or post UTME. This situation got to a head in 2014/15 session, when some of the candidates had the dilemma of choosing between the WASSCE and post UTME, especially when some universities fixed their post UTME on a crucial date for WASSC Examination.”

    Olapeju also lamented that SS3 pupils are not allowed to complete their secondary education properly because they spend their final year writing examinations.

    “The final year for secondary education in Nigeria rather than being used to conclude the cognitive activities and curriculum of secondary education is often used for various examinations. The students of SS3 literally transform from being students into candidates, crisscrossing various examination centres. The 39 weeks available for learning in the final year class are unjustifiably used up in examination writing rather than real learning. Two out of the 13 weeks available in the first term of the session are consumed by end of term examination before the Yuletide and New Year activities. This is followed by another four weeks of studies interspersed with sporting activities, then two or three weeks for Mock Examination. Some of them also undergo trial testing by some examination bodies before UTME comes calling.

    “With UTME, most students often take a week off normal studies to go through the rigours of identifying examination centres and eventually sitting for the papers.”

    Olapeju argued that with the advancement of technology that has helped JAMB to release results in record time, the UTME can be moved to July and all post-UTME screenings completed before new sessions begin in October.

    “The Federal Ministry of Education must direct the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board to consider the needless pains and rigours our children go through and fix the annual UTME in late July when the students would have passed out of secondary school.

    This was the situation in 2011, when owing to the voters Registration and the national election, JAMB examination was conducted in July. Barely a week after, the results were released and the universities and other tertiary institution thereafter fixed their post UTME activities. It was that year that the performance level of the student became outstanding. The introduction of CBT was intended to achieve optimal speed in processing the result of the examination.

  • JAMB bows to protesting candidates

    JAMB bows to protesting candidates

    The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) yesterday said that the board would reschedule examination for candidates who missed the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination because of relocation of centres by the board.

    The board said it relocated 59, 000 candidates in 15 states because of problems in some of the centres.

     It also said candidates who had system failure during the examination would retake it, if the board finds their complaint to be genuine.

     The Registrar of the board, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, who said this at a press conference in Abuja yesterday, added that the new development does not affect candidates who missed the examination deliberately or failed in the examination.

     He said among the 1,546,633 candidates that sat for the 2016 UTME, 145, 704 had issues of multiple results which have been resolved by the board.

    Prof. Ojerinde added that 23, 577 candidates were absent on the day of the examination.

     “We relocated candidates where the board had challenges. The board is looking at some of the issues raised during the examination, but most of the excuses raised by candidates are flimsy,” he said.

    “We relocated about 59, 000 candidates due to the problems in various centres which vary from town to town. There are about 59,000 of them spread across 15 states of the federation.

     “Those that were relocated never suffered any setback or inconvenience. For all these two sets of people, I want to apologise sincerely for what happened to them, but we are going to put on a redress for those whose relocation affected them in missing their examination.

     “Let me use this opportunity to offer explanation on the issue of the much-publicized two results. The process of our marking involves transformation and other qualitative programming. In the process of these configurations, we had a little challenge which we quickly corrected and ensured that this never happened in subsequent results. This challenge was only associated with the candidates that sat for this examination on Saturday, 27, and some candidates of Monday, 29 February, 2016.”

     Prof. Ojerinde said the board found out that some of the over 500 centres used for the CBT was compromised by the operators.

     He said that one of its centres in Uromi, Edo State was invaded by mercenaries during the examination.

     He blamed the education consultants for mobilizing candidates to protest against the conduct of the examination by the board, adding that the quality of the centres used for UTME would not be compromised.

     “In our quest to have adequate and effective centres for the exercise, we approved over 500 centres, but unfortunately, some of the centre operators were not sincere in proving us with the true position of their facilities.

     “They hired equipment during the period of accreditation and other necessary apparatus and on the examination day, they were found wanting. This led to relocation or rescheduling of candidates from some of them to more suitable centres.

     He said Nigeria was ready to take the CBT examination, adding that reverting to the PPT as directed by the House of Representatives would amount to lack of progress.

     According to him, the CBT would be improved upon.

     “Even the physically challenged are taking the CBT examination. One of the blind candidates scored 286, so why should others complain?

     “Going back to the Paper and Pencil Test will amount to taking one step forward and two steps backwards,” he said.