By Yekeen Nurudeen
The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has disclosed that all Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination centres, UTME, which are now computer based centres, must deploy close circuit television cameras as part of measures to tackle examination malpractices. The Board will also commence the sale of its 2017 UTME admission forms on March 20.
This was contained in a statement issued in Abuja on Monday by the Head of JAMB Public Relations, Fabian Benjamin.
According to him, the sale of forms and registration for the UTME would commence on Monday March 20 till Wednesday April 19, 2017 and registration closes on Saturday April 22.
The annual matriculation examination has been scheduled for between May 20, excluding May 12, to allow candidates write Further Mathematics examination for the West African Examinations Council, WAEC.
The statement said candidates are expected to pay N5, 500 for the registration package which includes registration fees, reading text, syllabus and brochure.
“UTME 2017 examination starts May 6 till May 20, 2017 (excluding May 12,2017 because of candidates sitting for WAEC’s Further Mathematics examination). Sale of forms ends on Wednesday, April 19, 2017 while the registration portal closes on Saturday, April 22, 2017. For direct entry candidates, the application will be on sale from Sunday, April 23, 2017″,JAMB wrote on its Twitter account.
It would be recalled that the Board had earlier announced the conclusion of all restructuring and reforms and is now set to commence the sale of its application forms in March.
Also in February, JAMB had announced that it had completed a joint timetable with WAEC and National Examination Council, NECO, to avoid clashing examination dates.
The restructuring exercise, it had said, would allow for only one choice of public university in which new registration platform will now be first choice, second choice, third choice and fourth choice and not most preferred choice.
According to Benjamin, the restructuring was aimed at expanding the opportunities available to candidates since almost all the public universities do not consider candidates on the second choice list because they hardly exhaust their first choice.
He said, “We have designed a Central Admissions Processing System where JAMB will interface with the institutions and ensure the compliance of this reform. The summary is that no candidate will be admitted with awaiting result.
“Candidates and their parents are also to note that JAMB has restructured the registration platform to allow for only one choice of public university. The new registration platform will now be first choice,second choice, third choice and fourth choice and not most preferred,preferred etc as it was. ‘
“Candidates’ first choice can be a College, University, Innovative Enterprises Institutions or Polytechnic/Monotechnic. However, if a candidate makes a Public University his first choice, he will not have any public University to choose for second, third and fourth choice. He will have on the remaining three choices, a College, Polytechnic, Private University and IEIs.
“However, candidates for the 2017 UTME can now select National Certificate in Education (College) or National Diploma (Polytechnic/Monotechnic) as their first choice up to third choice and the fourth IEI.
“They can select the IEI (Innovative Enterprise Institution, ND) as their first choice up to the fourth choice, but can only pick a public university once.”
While insisting that the registration of 2017 UTME will go side by side with the Direct Entry and during registration, JAMB said candidates’ 10 fingers would be captured using a Biometric Verification Machine.
Benjamin also warned candidates that no cyber café would be registering candidates for the UTME.
JAMB also explained that the time had come for it do do things differently and ensure that a reasonable percentage of qualified candidates find placement in tertiary institutions.