The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has assured admission seekers of a hitch-free 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The board has just concluded plans to begin the admission process on February 14.
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, gave the assurance while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of a meeting with Commissioners of Education of the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on Monday in Lagos.
Oloyede said the board had put machinery in place to tackle most of the challenges recorded during the conduct of the past examinations.
“Today’s meeting is to brief the commissioners on our level of preparedness for the upcoming examination and to seek their kind support, as critical stakeholders, to ensure that the exercise is a huge success.
“Recall that this meeting is usually held every examination year with the commissioners to brief them on what we are doing as it concerns the entire examination process, making it inclusive, robust and interactive, as much as we can.
“Again, we disclosed to the commissioners how their states are faring, especially to encourage them in our appeal for collaboration for the establishment of world-class Computer Based Test (CBT) centres nationwide.
“We showed them the result of the 2023 centre accreditation for the conduct of the examination nationwide, which proved that just a total of 600 centres have been approved, out of the over 800 that applied,” he said.
According to him, the approved figure is 140 less than the total number used for the same exercise in 2022.
Oloyede noted that the implication of this was that there would be a sharp drop in the number of personnel that would be engaged for the entire examination process.
“If you calculate the 10 workers being used per centre, you will understand the magnitude of what I have just explained,” he said.
The JAMB boss said the commissioners had appealed that they would be glad to see the inadequacies of the centres, particularly the public ones, to see if they could intervene.
He said the commissioners had also been asked to join hands with the board in the fight against examination malpractice.
Also, JAMB’s Director of Media and Protocol, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, assured all stakeholders that there would be no clash between the board’s examination and the forthcoming election.
“Like we all know, it is an election year. But we have lined up our activities in such a way that it will not be affected by the elections.
“So, I want to seize this opportunity too to tell prospective candidates and members of the public generally that there will be no clash.
“The commission, whose job it is to conduct the elections, has the capacity, just like the board, to carry out their separate functions effectively without one disturbing the other,” he said.
Some of the commissioners told NAN that the initiative was a welcome development, adding that it was fruitful.
