. Candidates delayed for hours
By Gabriel Dike
The 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Board (UTME) kicked off yesterday on a shaking note with 1.5million candidates seeking admission into the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
On the first day of the UTME, the inadequacies of Computer Based-Test (CBT) were exposed as hiccups marred the smooth start of the matriculation examination.
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says 1, 595, 779 candidates are expected to write the 2023 UTME from Tuesday, April 25th to May 3, 2023 in 708 CBT centers nationwide.
Statistics from JAMB indicate that Lagos State recorded 270, 573 registered candidates and also had the highest CBT centers in the country.
In Lagos, some CBT centers experienced minor hiccups including network related issues resulting in many candidates writing the UTME behind the schedule time.
At BAFUTO center, Ilewe-Ikotun, Lagos, the first set of candidates for 7.00am did not start the exam till 8.05am while those for 9.00am started at 10.55am and finished at 1.25pm.
Some of the candidates told our Correspondent that they were kept waiting in the exam hall close to one hour. The candidates for the morning session confirmed that they experienced network related issues.
Also, at Classic International Schools, Ejigbo, Lagos, the 9.00am candidates finished by 1.35pm while those for 12noon were kept in the waiting hall for about an hour.
A candidate, who was for the 9.00am session confirmed that they were kept waiting for over 40 minutes, adding, “we experienced network related issues and had to wait for the engineers to work on the server.”
At 1.35pm, candidates slated for 12noon session were waiting for their 9.00am colleagues to finish before going into the exam hall.
At Rising Sun High School, Egbe, Lagos, it was a similar story as network related problems delayed the smooth start of the 2023 UTME.
Candidates for the second session (9.00am) started by 10.30am and finished at 12.30pm while those scheduled for 12noon started at 1.00pm.
At Grand Schools, Egan, Lagos, some candidates told our Correspondent that the 9.00am and 12noon sessions wrote the UTME as scheduled.
Parents that accompanied their wards to the CBT centers and schools expressed concern why the candidates were kept in the hot sun.
The parents were also worried about the delay occasioned by network related issues and wondered why JAMB did not make an amend after a similar problem disrupted the mock-UTME on March 30th.
Efforts by Daily Sun to speak with the proprietors of the schools and CBT centers were unsuccessful as security personnel refused to allow our Correspondent access inside the premises.