By Gabriel Dike
Registrar of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, on Wednesday accused operators of tutorial centres of being the behind examination malpractice committed during the conduct of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
Prof. Oloyede, who faulted the claim that over 600,000 candidates have not registered for the 2021 UTME, said records available revealed that only 17, 758 candidates are yet to register.
Oloyede pointed accusing figures at tutorial centres for perpetuating exam fraud. He made the observations while on the on-the-spot assessment to JAMB Lagos office to find solutions to some candidates that couldn’t register for the 2021 UTME.
According to him, some of the problems candidates are experiencing were caused by tutorial centres working with their agents to perpetuate examination malpractice during the conduct of 2021 UTME.
He disclosed that private tutorial centres are holding the system to ransom, adding ”every dilapidated or abandoned buildings are used as tutorial centres. The centres are avenue to perpetuate exam fraud. Most of the teachers who teach in such centres are drop-out from schools.
Worried by the trend, Prof. Oloyede appealed to state ministries of education to regulator the activities of tutorial centres and commended the decision taken by the Lagos State Government recently to sanction some schools for alleged misconduct.
Said he: ”I like what the Lagos State Government did by sanctioning schools found wanting. Other state government should emulate what Lagos did. The tutorial centres are destroying the live of the children.
”Some teachers marking answer scripts are sent by private schools to manipulate the results. Some of the teachers call schools to inform them they are marking their students scripts and they negotiate. Some private schools are destroying the system.
”State government should deregister schools involve in exam malpractice. State governments must also publish the names of the schools involved in exam fraud. Schools involved in exam fraud are demarketing the system.
The JAMB Registrar faulted the claim that over 600,000 candidates have been shut out of the 2021 UTME and insisted that only 17,758 candidates are yet to do so because of their non-compliance with the process of how to register for the exam.
He gave a breakdown of candidates in states yet to resister, which include Lagos 3,220, Kwara 1,300, Oyo 1,000, Kano 1,000, Imo 83 and Ebonyi 87 and asked ”where are the 600,000 candidates yet to register. Tutorial centres are the ones causing the problem.”
Oloyede and officials of JAMB interrogated some candidates who failed to register at the appropriate time and it was discovered that the fault came from tutorial centres, mothers and candidates sending the wrong code and also not carrying instructions after JAMB had responded.
Two suspected syndicated members working for tutorial centres were nabbed, one with two National Identification Number (NIN) numbers while several underaged candidates were picked out and questioned by the JAMB Registrar.