Tag: JAMB

The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has shut down seven examination centres across Bayelsa State for violating its rules and regulations for examination.

According to available data, the closure of the centres leaves Bayelsa state with only four centres to cater for about 24,000 candidates.

The state coordinator of JAMB, Abdusalam Mohammed, who made this known during a call on the leadership of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Yenagoa, explained that some of the examination centres were delisted for duplicating the Virtual Private Network (VPN) of their router.

Others were delisted for charging unsuspecting candidates outrageous sums of money during registration.

His words, “Initially Bayelsa had eleven examination centres, and so far seven out of this number have been delisted from our platform for various infractions.

The owners of some of these centres tampered with the VPN of our router. And that is a very big offence.

“They duplicated the VPN by moving the router from one location to another location where they did whatever they liked, which is a very big offence. “Others were overcharging candidates.

During registration, we sent out a monitoring team out and they came back with the report that candidates were charged N5,000 for a service that should ordinarily cost N2, 500.

” Mohammed also gave insight into the level of preparedness of the board to conduct examination as coronavirus continues to spread saying,

“even before the lockdown was lifted, we had started training our staff on how to attend to candidates. We have also embarked on sensitisation of candidates and provided personal prevention equipment.

TERTIARY institutions may be prevailed upon to delay the screening of admission seekers for the 2020/2021 academic session, it was learnt on Sunday.

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and heads of all tertiary institutions are billed for a meeting today to discuss the possibility of shifting the commencement of admission processes to a new date.

The Nation learnt that a date may be picked in September for the kick-off of admission processes for 2020/2021 academic session.

On the table for discussion is the possibility of institutions either delaying or prolonging their screening exercises to accommodate candidates who will be taking the 2020 O’ level examinations conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), National Examination Council and National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB) would be put on the table during the meeting.

In June, during its policy meeting at its Headquarters in Bwari, Abuja, the board had announced that this year’s admission would commence on August 22.

The closure of schools as a result of the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic is affecting the about 1, 352, 988 candidates who scored 120 and above in this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

Most of them are candidates with awaiting results. The same applies to 930, 305 candidates that scored 160 and above.

Following Federal Government’s decision to reopen schools for pupils in Senior Secondary School (SSS3) to participate in the 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) scheduled to begin on August 17, the board convened a meeting to discuss the possibility asking institutions to either delay or prolong their admission processes to allow pupils with awaiting results upload the required O’ level.

JAMB, in its weekly bulletin released by its Head of Information and Media Dr. Fabian Benjamin, said: “As a responsible organisation whose mantra is equity and fairness, the board desires that every aspiring candidate who had its UTME be given equal opportunity to compete with his/her peers for the available openings.

“This is the reason for its call for another meeting with all the institutions with a view to amending the earlier mutually agreed date for the conduct of Post-UTME screening and other processes.

“As intellectuals, it is incumbent on the board and the various tertiary institutions to always provide practical solutions to perceived challenges for the smooth running of the sector without being prompted by the government.

“Such solutions, when arrived at, would then be forwarded to the relevant ministries, agencies for further inputs and necessary approvals.

“It is in view of this that the board is working to pre-empt any unpalatable situation that may arise if institution conduct their admissions without accommodating the vast number of candidates that are about to take their O’ level examinations.

“Consequently, the board would at the meeting, be looking at the possibility of ensuring that the various institutions either delay or prolong their screening exercises to accommodate candidates who will be taking the 2020 O’ level examinations conducted by the WAEC and NABTEB.”