UTME: JAMB Assures Candidates Of Exams Rescheduling Amidst Glitches

As the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) exercise enters day 2, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has assured candidates whose examinations were disrupted that they would be rescheduled to write them at a later date.

Public communications advisor of JAMB, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, stated this during the Senate Committee on Tertiary Education’s monitoring of the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in Abuja yesterday.

Benjamin responded to questions raised by parents and candidates whose examinations were disrupted at the Good Success Computer Based Test (CBT) Center, Utako.

“Naturally, you should have one or two challenges here and there. It is not unusual and I don’t think there is anybody that will condone the exam using 1,000 centers and you expect that you won’t have any problem. But the most important thing is that if these problems do occur, are you prepared to handle them? And that is what we have just done there.

“That all those candidates will be rescheduled to another date, another center where they will sit the examination. It is natural to have a problem.

“We are assuring all Nigerians that every candidate who registered for this exam will be given the opportunity to sit for it. If your center fails today, you will be rescheduled again to take the exam. For any reason, even when you are rescheduled, and for any reason again, you are unable to sit for the examination, you will be rescheduled again,” he added.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFund, Senator Mohammed Dandutse, agreed that JAMB and CBT centers faced with a lot of challenges but promised to resolve them.

“From what we have seen, we have seen progress and we have seen a lot of challenges faced by the centres.

“And this one is not only in Abuja, it’s throughout the country. As a matter of fact, we sincerely appreciate what we have seen so far.

“Because the other issue is a technical issue, it happened yesterday and it also happened today, which was explained by the supervisor. But the truth of the matter, it has been a constraint to JAMB because these issues need to be addressed even before the exam takes place,” he said.

A parent, Mr. David Afolanyo lamented that the situation could have been salvaged earlier.

“My daughter is writing, she was supposed to write yesterday. They said there was no network. They said we should come today to write. We came today. We’ve been here since 6 o’clock.

“And now they are telling us to go.

“They are talking about relocating the children to another center. Some children paid more than 6,000, 10,000 Naira as transport to get here. Who will pay for them to go there again? Who will pay for them to go there again?” he asked.

Similarly, a candidate, Eunice Peter, who travelled from Kaduna for the examination, vented out her frustration as she was unable to participate on both days.

“I came all the way from Kaduna to come and write this exam. I paid N7,000, I paid for a lodge. When I got to the lodge it was around 10pm. I left the lodge by 5am to look for this centre. Now they are telling me they will reschedule. So I have to pay all that N7,000 to go back. It’s not nice,” she lamented.