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By Gabriel Dike
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) would not stop the sales of admission forms for prospective students for the 2023/24 academic session because of the crisis caused by the suspended eight month industrial action by Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
It also has said it would no longer register centres not using laptops to conduct its Computer-Based Test Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination ( UTME).
Its Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, disclosed this in Lagos, yesterday, while briefing the press on the innovations being introduced by the Board to enhance its activities and make the conduct of the UTME more seamless.
Responding on the call by some stakeholders that the board stop the sale of admission forms to allow public universities get over the backlog of admissions they are contending with, the JAMB registrar said: “The recent strike affected mainly public universities and even some did not join. Universities like the Osun State University, the Lagos State University, and the Kwara State University did not join, we should not hold such institutions back. Each affected university should devise means of getting over the problem.
“Some universities are already merging admission exercises, some are running two sessions in parallel manner. We have also advised admission seekers to find out if their choices of schools would be able to meet their expectations. As we talk, some private universities have concluded admission exercises for 2022/23 session and getting ready for the next batch of students,” he said.
Oloyede said the Board is also considering the adoption of e-wallet for payments for its services to reduce the payment of some charges by candidates.
“We have observed that some CBT centres deploying desktops to conduct the exam do experience power outage and that sometimes lead to the distraction of candidates. Before they begin to switch over to other sources of power, some candidates may lose concentration. New centres to be registered to conduct our exam must make use of laptops only. When fully charged, laptops can still work for some time before going off.
“It is not that we are going to stop using centres deploying desktops, but they must have UPS to back up their computers apart from standby generating sets. And we are advising our centres to all switch to the use of laptops.
“Because of the need to also make operators of CBT centres get more income, we have increased the charges that they can maximally charge candidates from N700 to N1,000. That will not add any kobo to the cost of registration by the candidates,” Oloyede said.
