By Felix Khanoba
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has directed all Computer-Based Test (CBT) centre owners to arrest any parent who is found near any of their facilities during the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) exercise.
A statement signed by JAMB spokesman Dr. Fabian Benjamin on Thursday said the directive was issued at the final briefing of the CBT owners, which was held virtually on Wednesday, April 17, 2024.
This directive became necessary following the intrusive disposition of some parents during the board’s previous exercises.
According to the registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, any parent, who disobeys this order would not only be arrested, but his ward would also be disqualified from sitting the examination.
“This measure is necessary as it has been discovered over time that many of these intruding parents are facilitators of examination infractions while others have, by their actions, disrupted the Board’s examinations in the past. Some miscreants also disguise themselves as parents to infiltrate the centres and perpetrate all forms of infractions, ” the statement said.
Consequently, the Registrar disclosed that the Board has directed security operatives to work with the centres to apprehend any meddlesome parents who come near the centres.
The Board’s helmsman noted that, going by the extant national policy on education, a candidate for the examination must have attained the age of 17 years.
“Therefore, it is evident that these parents had not allowed their wards to pass through the classes as defined in the document, hence, the determination to follow their wards to the examination venue with the aim of compromising examination officials. At any rate, it is clear to any discerning observer that these parents deserve to be sanctioned as they had obviously ‘smuggled’ underage children into the ranks of those scheduled to sit the examination, ” the JAMB boss said.
The Board also availed itself of the opportunity provided by the meeting to advise candidates to jealously guard their personal details, e-mail address, as well as their registration and phone numbers.
The advice was prompted against the backdrop of some candidates, who might be enticed into patronising any of those fraudulent websites out there. Consequently, the Board informed candidates that if their personal details are found with any of such sites, they would be treated as accomplices and prosecuted.
Furthermore, the Registrar said all arrangements have been concluded for the conduct of the 2024 UTME, which will be held in over 700 CBT centres across the nation.
He disclosed that the Board expects a seamless exercise but it has nevertheless made adequate provision to tackle any technical glitch that might occur in the course of the examination.
He, however, warned that if a session experienced any technical challenge, candidates in subsequent sessions would be allowed to sit their examination as scheduled while the candidates in the challenged session would be rescheduled for the last session for the day or the following day or even further depending on the centre schedules.
He said candidates are to take note of this so that they will remain calm in the event of any disruption. In this wise, any candidate or parent, who disrupt any subsequent session on account of the failure of his/her session, would be disqualified outright from taking the examination.
Continuing, Prof. Oloyede appealed to centre owners to consider the assignment as a national engagement and not as a purely profit venture. He urged them to expose the bad eggs among them.
The Registrar recalled that hitherto, CBT centres were allowed to register Direct Entry candidates but this practice was discontinued owing to the predilection of some of them to engage in fraudulent acts in spite of the many opportunities that the Board had created for them especially by ensuring that other agencies patronise them. He, therefore, enjoined centre owners to eschew unwholesome acts or risk losing vital opportunities.
He expressed shock over multiple intelligence showing how the CBT centres have been making efforts to compromise the Board’s staff especially with the offer of accommodation. He asked why they would want to do that when they constantly complain that what is paid them is not enough.
He said the centres should not hesitate to expose any staff, who ask for such favours as the Board had sufficiently paid its staff for the exercise in line with government regulations adding that any centre which persists in doing so, might have something to hide.
The registrar informed the participants that the Board had deployed state-of-the-art technologies to check all manners of infractions, collaborations and other unsavoury acts that are at variance with its code of operations.
