The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has set January 10 date for the commencement of the sales of the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) form.
The sales of form, according to the examination body, will take place within six weeks while the examination will hold in March after the general elections.
Speaking at a stakeholders’ forum yesterday at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, the JAMB Registrar, Prof. Isiaq Oloyede, thanked the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for releasing its timetable on time, saying doing so has helped the examination body to plan the conduct of its examination in the new year.
Oloyede, who read out the new rules guiding the 2019 examinations to the owners and operators of the Computer-Based Test Centres (CBT), confirmed that a total of 718 CBT centres have been registered to take part in the examination.
The forum, which had in attendance the Chairman of the Governing Board of the examination body, Dr. Emmanuel Ndukwe; Vice-Chancellor of Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, Prof. Olanrewaju Fagbohun; Head of Nigeria Office of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Mr. Isaac Adenipekun, among others, critically appraised the new rules guiding the conduct of the examination in 2019.
According to the Registrar, some of the new guidelines, especially in connection with the CBT operators include the abolition of the scanning of passport photographs of candidates and real-time picture capture in its place; biometric capturing of 10 fingers, entries review and correctness confirmation, printing of registration slip only by using biometric authentication to confirm valid finger-print, and collection of reading text and compact disc (CD).
Oloyede said; “We have reviewed all our activities in the past years and we must commend some of our partners who made us proud. There were the bad eggs and a total of 50 of these bad eggs among the CBT centres were sanctioned in 2018 with many of them currently facing prosecution.
“This year, to avoid infractions such as the illegal movement of routers and extension of registration points, there is no longer offline registration as all accredited CBT centres have been empowered for real-time online registration.”