The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says preparations are ongoing for the commencement of sale of registration documents for its 2023/2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The Registrar of the board, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, gave the assurance during a media chat on Sunday in Lagos.
He was reacting to speculation that JAMB might not conduct UTME for the 2023/2024 session due to the effects of the protracted strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on admissions into public universities.
“I want to clearly state here that there is no truth in such a rumour. To start with, it is not all the universities that went on strike.
“To some others, academic sessions were uninterrupted but they have since concluded admission for the 2022/2023 session; so, there is no moral justification to stop the conduct of our examination for the 2023/2024 session.
“In fact, about one-third of these universities were running a normal session while the strike lasted, and had concluded,” he said.
He described the strike as unfortunate, saying, however, that many of the affected universities were able to come up with innovative ways to tackle backlogs.
“Right now, we are doing everything possible to ensure that we come up with a date.
“My appeal, therefore, is for the Federal Government and ASUU to seek a common ground to the issues raised, in a bid to forestall any further occurrence,” he said.
The JAMB boss said that, with effect from 2023, all new centres to be accredited for UTME must provide only laptops for the conduct of the examination.
He said that the aim was to eradicate system collapse due to disruptions in power supply.
According to him, all existing centres using desktops must provide backups such as UPS to keep the systems going during the examination in the event of any disruption in power supply.
Oloyede added that henceforth candidates would pay N1,000 at the point of registration for both the mock and the real UTME.
He said that the payment would help in cushioning the effect of the high cost of energy used in running the CBT centres throughout the entire period of the exercise.
“We have given approval to operators of the CBT centres to increase their service charge from N700 to N1,000.
“Candidates are to pay the charge ahead, at the point of registration for both the mock and the main examinations.
“This will also eliminate the waste of time and resources. We know of cases in which candidates will indicate interest for mock at the point of registration but, at the end, they don’t show up,” he said.
Oloyede also said that arrangements had been concluded for the upgrade of JAMB’s Integrated Brochure and Syllabus System to serve as a communication channel among it, regulatory agencies and tertiary institutions.
He said that the initiative, which would be rolled out on Nov. 14 in Abuja, would serve as a communication platform along with JAMB’s Central Admission Processing System (CAPS).
The JAMB boss said that the development was to ensure the full transition from a paper communication system to paperless system.
“This will reduce delay in the conduct of the board’s critical operations, increase efficiency, track communication and archive records of communications,” he said.
According to him, already, the CAPS communication platform is being used to transmit, track and record/archive communication on admission-related issues between institutions and JAMB.
“For a smooth transition to paperless regime, the board would be meeting with all tertiary institutions, virtually, on Monday, Nov. 14.
“The meeting will be held in two batches on the same day – for the northern and southern tertiary institutions.
“Also in attendance would be the three regulatory bodies of institutions of higher learning in the country – National Universities Commission, National Commission for Colleges of Education and National Board for Technical Education,” he said.
The registrar also told journalists that the board was considering adopting e-wallet for payment for its services.
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