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Oloyede warns states against exam malpractice
By Gabriel Dike
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Examination Board (JAMB) has charged education commissioners in the 36 states to intensify efforts to curb examination malpractice during the conduct of the 2026 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, who spoke at a meeting in Lagos with Commissioners for Education to strategise on way to ensure the smooth registration and conduct of the examination, advised states to exercise due diligence in entering into Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with owners of Computer-Based Test (CBT) centers and warned that failure to do so could have serious consequences.
Oloyede said the purpose of the meeting is to sustain stakeholder collaboration with the commissioners for education to ensure hitch-free registration and conduct of the 2026 UTME and to share JAMB’s vision, policies, strategies for the 2026 exercise, including new measures to strengthen integrity and efficiency.
The registrar reiterated the Board’s commitment to sustaining its long-standing advocacy of 18 years as minimum age for candidates seeking admission into Nigerian universities.
He explained that candidates must declare their previous registration and admission status with the board and pointed out that some students were involved in examination malpractice during the conduct of last year’s UTME.
Prof. Oloyede noted that it is a crime by law to run more than one undergraduate programme concurrently and failure to disclose such previous admission is an offence which will attract sanction.
The JAMB helmsman explained that underage candidates who will be less than 16 years old by September 30, 2026, will undergo an intensive evaluation to determine their eligibility for a waiver and that they must have scored not less than 80 percent in UTME/A’LEVEL, PUTME, SSCE and in the exceptional candidate assessment.
Oloyede stressed that unlike last year, the UTME results of the underage candidates will be released only at the conclusion of the complete evaluation process.
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“The sale of UTME application document, which is the ePIN, will start earlier than the commencement of actual registration which is Jan. 19 to Feb. 26. The actual UTME registration period is between January 26 and February 28 at approved CBT centres.
According to him, the close of mock selection is February 16 while the sale of Direct Entry application documents and E-PIN vending will commence on March 2nd, and close by April 25.
The JAMB boss said all centres involved in the UTME registration exercise would be monitored live from JAMB Headquarters, warning that any centre whose registration activities cannot be viewed from its headquarters will not be paid and such registration may be invalidated.
He confirmed that 924 centres had been screened and listed, adding that they would go through the final test before final accreditation to participate in the UTME registration and examination.
Oloyede disclosed that candidates are not required to pay any money as service charges to any CBT centre.
On distant posting he said the Board does not post any candidate to any examination town (or group of towns) other than the one chosen by the candidate at the point of registration.
Oloyede advised candidates to register early since their preferred town may no longer have space for them at a late period and that the choice of a group of towns implies that candidates can be posted to any of the towns in the chosen group.
Some of the education commissioners, who spoke to journalists after the meeting, commended Oloyede and the Board for their proactive measures and pledged to support efforts aimed at eliminating all forms of examination malpractice.
