•Tells private schools to stop interfering in process, says UTME not school-based examination

Kuni Tyessi in Abuja and Hammed Shittu in Ilorin

The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), yesterday, said candidates who could not write the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Exam (UTME) within their allotted time and date due to no error of theirs have another opportunity to do so on May 6.

Candidates under these categories are predominantly those who were verified at their centres but could not sit for the examination, those who could not be biometrically verified as well as those with mismatched data.

JAMB commenced its 2023 UTME on April 25 and was expected to have ended the examination by May 3.

The board had said it would reschedule the exam of over 60,000 candidates affected by various glitches on day 1.

But yesterday, the board's head of public affairs, Fabian Benjamin, said the number of outstanding candidates has now risen to 80,166.

“Out of the 1,586,765 candidates that indicated an interest in sitting the examination, only 80,166 are now outstanding,” he said.

“On the first day of the 2023 UTME, a number of candidates in some centres could not sit the examination as well as in some centres on subsequent days due to diverse reasons.

“Though a reasonable number of them have been rescheduled and have taken the examination, some are yet to take their examination.

“As part of the decisions reached at the end of an emergency management meeting held on 31st April 2023, the board has fixed Saturday, 6th May 2023, for all categories of candidates who have not sat their examination.”

Also listed for the rescheduled exams date are all candidates who were meant to sit the 2023 UTME at the Beautiful Beginning CBT Centre, Apo in Abuja, but missed their exam due to JAMB's error in listing the address of the place.

Furthermore, it includes those who had been rescheduled for April 27, but received their notification at night on the same day or did not receive it at all and candidates posted to exam centres with reduced intake capacity.

Those in these categories, the JAMB spokesman said, are to print their slips on or before May 5, to know the exam time and venue.

JAMB said it would be releasing the results of candidates who have taken the examination so far on May 2, 2023. It said it had delayed the release to ensure that all necessary screening is concluded.

“All candidates who sat the exam are urged to check their results on or before 8th May 2023,” the board added.

The Director of JAMB in Kwara State, Alhaji Aliyu Kolawole Jubril, in Ilorin, yesterday, during a chat with newsmen promised to reschedule the exam.

Aliyu had disclosed that just few out of over one million registered candidates were unable to write the UTME, promising that the board would reschedule only the captured candidates at the examination venues for 6th May, 2023.

He said innovative measures put in place for conducting the examination has rendered the process more marvelous compared to the previous ones.

He said “All the candidates who missed the first examination will be rescheduled for another one coming up 6th May, 2023.

“If not for the glitches that greeted the process of conducting the examination, the 2023 UTME would have been the best ever in the history of JAMB.

“Innovation measures have been put in place to render the examination more marvelous.”

Aliyu directed candidates and parents to visit www.jamb.gov.ng or Central Processing System, CPS, to drop whatever complaint they have instead of direct confrontation with the officials of JAMB or visitation to the JAMB offices.

He gave assurance that response would be given to reasonable complaints submitted on the portal between Monday and Thursday this week.

Relatedly, JAMB has clarified that the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) Registration and Examination exercises are not school-based.

According to another statement by Benjamin, the clarification became necessary after the Board's attention was drawn to the unholy intrusion of the authorities by some elite schools, who confiscate the registration SIMs of their students.

“The Board, therefore, wishes to state clearly that unlike the West African Examination Council (WAEC), National Examination Council (NECO), etc., the UTME Registration and Examination exercises are not school-based.

“As such, schools have no role whatsoever to play in these operational processes of the Board. This is because these exercises require only the participation and engagement of individual candidates.

“It should be recalled that the Board had repeatedly warned authorities of elite schools to stop intruding into the operations of the Board so as not to negatively impact the future of their UTME candidates.”

According to reports, some elite schools were fond of hoarding the network SIM cards of UTME candidates in their schools, denying them access to their email addresses, their profile codes and as such, depriving them of the opportunity of receiving vital information from the Board.

The statement added that it also discovered in the ongoing examination that these schools also warehoused their candidates' examination notification slips leading to many of these candidates missing their examinations owing to their inability to access their slips to know their exact examination schedules.

“It is, however, regrettable that some of these candidates after missing their examination placed the blame on the Board whereas much of the information that the candidates needed had been sent to these SIMs which were being held by their schools,” the exam body added.

The Board reiterated that it would not accept any responsibility for the inability of these candidates to turn up on their scheduled examination dates.