Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has revealed its major challenge in the course of organizing the annual University Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.
The admission exam body said one of the greatest challenges it had was the involvement of candidates in exam malpractices and fraud.
Registrar of the board, Mr. Ishaq Oloyede, said this during a meeting with the Itse Sagay led Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption in Abuja on Wednesday
He said most parents have gone “haywire in their various activities of making sure their wards passed the examination at all cost.”
“A candidate was caught here for impersonation. He agreed he did it that he was writing for his brother and their mother was aware. And when a call was put through to the mother, she said she is a prophetess. This is an example among others,” he said.
“My two years here have been more stressful than my cumulative years in the university system. None of my superiors ever asked me to do what is wrong since I became a registrar,” Mr Oloyede said.
“The board will open an account too and any candidate who pays into the account for fraudulent activities will be disqualified from writing the examination,” he hinted.
He said, out of 1,840,225 candidates who wrote the examination, only 800,000 have the 5 credits minimum requirements for O’level.
“There are 767 tertiary higher institutions in Nigeria, about 560,168 candidates have been admitted. About 20 per cent of the candidates are in SS2, they only took JAMB for trials. 1,178,665 candidates scored above 100 in the 2018 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination,” he said.