JAMB may alter UTME registration in 2018 — ‘because people are criminally innovative’

Ishaq Oloyede, registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), says the board may introduce a new mode of registration in 2018 to checkmate fraudsters.

Oloyede, who made the remarks at a news conference on Thursday in Lagos, also said any Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) candidate defrauded by con men deserved no sympathy.

The registrar said the board would continue to introduce measures to beat examination malpractice, adding that next year’s examination might have a new registration mode.

“Among the malpractices discovered this year was a case of two different persons having fingerprints for a candidate.

“In this case, it is the impersonator and the person being impersonated conniving with some other persons at the CBT centres.

“However, as they are coming up with all these tricks, we are putting modalities on ground to be ahead of them.

“I want to assure that next year’s examination might not use the current method we used in the examination process.

“People are being criminally innovative, but that will not stop us from moving ahead and protecting the sanctity and integrity of our examination,” Oloyede said.

According to him, those candidates, who might have been defrauded deserve no sympathy because they were looking for ways to circumvent the integrity of the UTME.

“Even parents besiege examination centres, looking for means to `corner’ impersonators to hire in order to help their children pass the examination.

“In this case, it is widely observed that family values have been eroded and it is indeed painful.”

The registrar said some `mushroom’ computer-based testing (CBT) centres had derailed from the set rules.

“They do not deserve to be assisted as some of them, connive to defraud the innocent public as they do anything possible to make money.

“They even create VIP rooms in their centres by extending JAMB cables into a private room, where they write the examination for candidates for a fee.”

Oloyede, however, exonerated some centres, saying they had perfected the vision of JAMB.

He added that the board was encouraging such upcoming and prospective CBT centres to key into the board’s vision.

Assessing the conduct of the examination so far, the registrar said the conduct of the examination could be adjudged “free and fair’’ in spite of few hitches in some centres.

“So far, 1,648,429 candidates have written the CBT mode examination.”

Oloyede said he was in Lagos for an on the spot assessment of some centres in the state.

“I must say that some of these centres did not really meet our standards nor abide by our rules. Some of these `mushroom’ centres broke the rules by conniving with some candidates to compromise the integrity of the examination.

“It is indeed sad and painful that parents and even the candidates allow themselves to be defrauded and used by the owners of some of these centres.

“However, so far, it has been good even though we have seen how clever and wise our people can be, having tried to deploy all kinds of shady means to cheat,” he said.

NAN reports that 1.7 million candidates registered for the examination, which is expected to end on May 20.