At the close of registration on March 31, a total of 1, 052, 112 candidates had applied, online, for this year’s Universities Matriculation Examination (UME) for admission into 92 universities, which have the capacity to admit only about 250, 000 of them.

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This is however not the final figure as the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) was compelled to continue the registration off-line, by prospective candidates who could not register online at the close of the extended registration period.

JAMB Registrar, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, who disclosed this in his opening address at a meeting with UME Coordinators, held in Lagos, yesterday, said the candidates have been distributed to 1, 979 centres nationwide, while 46 coordinating institutions and supervisors have been mobilised to take charge of the examination. He added that, “A total of 107 officials from degree-awarding institutions and other sister examination bodies to assist in providing security at examination centres.”  

He appealed to the Coordinators to “strive to make sure that we conduct credible examination devoid of malpractice so as to protect and promote the image and integrity of the Board.

 “Since ours is a selection examination, which when marred by ineffective supervision/invigilation, wrong candidates could be selected at the expense of candidates who merit admission, it is therefore your moral and civic responsibility to partner with the Board in ensuring that you meet and exceed the Board’s expectations in the performance of your assignment.”

On examination malpractice, the Registrar said the Board has embarked on an enlightenment campaign to the candidates on the implications of cheating. This has been put into VCD that would be made available to each candidate from the next Monotechnics, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education (MPCE) Examination. But in the forthcoming UME, scheduled to hold on May 17, candidates who sneak their mobile phones into the examination centres, will find them useless as a device called “mobile jammer’ has been installed in some ‘notorious centres’, to begin with. With time, Ojerinde said, all centres of the Board’s examination will have the device in place.

Asked what JAMB was doing about the difficulties encountered by candidates in the online registration, Ojerinde said the Board was considering a limitless bandwidth for subsequent registrations.

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