The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has again rescheduled the computer-based Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) for candidates who experienced hitches at their centres.
Affected candidates, whose inability to take tests was not their fault, are now to sit the test on Saturday, 6th May, JAMB spokesperson Fabian Benjamin said in a statement on Monday.
He said the development was part of the decisions taken at the JAMB management’s emergency meeting held on Sunday.
JAMB said out of the 1,586,765 candidates that indicated an interest in sitting the examination, only 80,166 are now outstanding.
The board had last Tuesday rescheduled tests for candidates who experienced technical hitches on the first day of the tests, fixing new schedules between 26th April and 2nd May.
New Date
“As part of the decisions reached at the end of an emergency management meeting held on Sunday, 30th April, 2023, the Board has fixed Saturday, 6th May, 2023, for all categories of candidates who have not sat their examination, as listed below, to take their examination,” Mr Benjamin said.
He said affected candidates are to print their slips on or before Thursday, so as to know the time and venue of their examination.
Affected Candidates
Mr Benjamin listed the categories of candidates affected to include; those who were verified at their centres but could not sit the examination, those who could not be biometrically verified, and those with mismatched data.
He said the first categories of candidates are to take their examinations in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT) “under close supervision.”
These candidates, according to him, are those who registered for the 2023 UTME without manifesting any biometric difficulty but could not be verified on the day of the examination.
Abuja Centre challenge
The second category, JAMB said, are candidates who were scheduled to sit the 2023 UTME at the Beautiful Beginning CBT Centre, Apo, Abuja, but missed the examination. They have been rescheduled to take the examination on Saturday, 6th May, he said.
“The rescheduling of all the candidates, who missed the examination is as a result of the mistake made in the address of the centre, which had led to some candidates missing their examination,” he said.
“It should be noted that the name of the centre which is Beautiful Beginning CBT Centre, Apo, Abuja, featured “Gwagwalada” rather than “Apo” hence misleading the candidates.”
Mr Benjamin said: “The board would not abdicate its responsibilities and has consequently, rescheduled all candidates posted to the centre, who could not sit their examination on account of the wrong address or any other reason, to ensure that no candidate misses the examination.”
The third category are the candidates that were rescheduled to take the examination on 27th April but could not receive the notification.
“Some of these candidates could not receive the notification because their school held on to their channels of receiving messages such as their SIM cards, their e-mail addresses and profile codes,” Mr Benjamin said.
He, therefore, warned schools that the UTME is not a school-based examination.
Other affected candidates
Other candidates affected by the development, according to the board, are candidates with mismatched data as well as those whose centres could not carry their full capacity of 250 and, such, had to be “batched with some of these centres taking 150 candidates rather than the 250 allotted to them per session.”
“For obvious reasons, some CBT centres mismatched the data of some candidates they registered. This was also made possible by the carelessness of these candidates who could not avail themselves of the Board’s provision of dual screens to monitor the course of their registration,” he said.
He said the process of rectifying their data is ongoing and they will also be scheduled to sit the examination on Saturday, 6th May.
“Some of these remaining candidates in the batched sessions have also been rescheduled and have taken the examination but some are yet to do so,” he added.
