BY FELIX KASSIM
No fewer than 350,000 candidates out of the over 1.9million that registered for this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) will today (Tuesday) sit for a mock exam.
Registrar of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, stated this in Abuja on Monday during the commissioning of the Board’s General Services Department’s building.
He said the mock exam which is to test-run preparedness for the 2020 UTME will take part in 64 Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres from across the country.
He said: “The mock exam will have about 35 000 candidates in 64 registered CBT centers.”
While saying there would be no extension for UTME registration which came to a close on Monday, the JAMB boss said about 2,000 direct entry candidates also registered for this year’s admission process.
Commissioning the General Services Department’s building, Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, warned universities and other tertiary education institutions against offering admission to candidates without recourse to JAMB’s Central Admission Processing System (CAPS).
The minister, who commended JAMB for introducing CAPS, said the development has brought full transparency and equal opportunity into the admission system.
“The Central Admission Processing System ensures due process, fairness, discipline and equity in the process. It is through the automated system that ordinary Nigerians are now hopeful of not being denied their rightful place in the admission exercise.
“It is also instructive that CAPS protects the traditional right of Senate or Academic Board of the institutions since CAPS does not allow anyone other than the admission officer and the Vice Chancellor, Rector or Provost to initiate, propose or recommend any candidate for admission, but it also requires the documentation and tracking of any deviation by the institution from the approved policy on admission.
“I therefore urge all institutions to play according to the rules by conducting all the admission processes only through CAPS.
“Permit me to seize this opportunity to state that leadership of any higher institution found to be involved in admitting any candidate without prior approval of the Board or outside the established platform, Central Admission Processing System, would be considered and treated as corrupting the admission system.”
