From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has barred Computer Based Test (CBT) centres from vending e-PINs for Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) with effect from 2022.
The decision, JAMB said, was to guard against extortion of candidates and other corrupt activities being allegedly perpetrated by the CBT centre operators.
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, who disclosed the information at a meeting with Education Correspondents, in Abuja, at the weekend, said that JAMB activities is fast tilting towards cashless, hence the decision to bar CBT centres from vending UTME e-PINs.
He said: “We have intensified campaign on cashless operations at JAMB. It’s known that many CBT centres, despite the supervision, still manage to exploit candidates. We want to put a stop to to that.
“So, we have intensified monitoring but part of what we are doing is to ensure we protect the students against this extortion, and that is why we are asking the candidates to pay through us and we would remit same to CBT centres for their services.
“With this decision, anybody who collects money from the CBT centre would have been seen to have violated the directive because they are not supposed to collect any money from the candidates.
“We are also going to ensure that e-PINs are not something that they would be selling at the CBT centres. We would ensure that anybody who wants to sell e-PINs will not be a CBT centre. Once you are a CBT centre you have lost the right to sell e-PIN so that we can hold the ePIN sellers responsible for what they do.”
Meanwhile, the JAMB Registrar said that JAMB will soon clear the backlog of illegal admissions conducted by tertiary education institutions in the country.
He recalled that the Board recently uncovered 706,189 illegal admissions by universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, and other related institutions, and had acted accordingly.
Prof. Oloyede said, “The move is to rescue students who have the requisite qualifications but were admitted illegally. On the issue of illegal admission, that we want to put a halt to. We want to clear the backlog and ensure that those of them who have been improperly admitted but have the minimum qualification are rescued.
“We want to continue the campaign to discourage those who are committing such illegal action to stop doing such.”