New Telegraph

2021 UTME: Relief for applicants, candidates

…as JAMB extends registration deadline, shifts exam dates
How use of NIN frustrated processes
600,000 prospective candidates failed to meet deadline

Prospective candidates and applicants for this year’s UTME, who are yet to register for the examination, should not lose hope. The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), the body conducting examinations into the nation’s higher institutions, has extended the registration deadline. Kayode Olanrewaju reports…

RESPITE

Relief has come the way of hundreds of thousands of prospective candidates for this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and the Direct Entry (DE) programme. The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), the body in charge of the conduct of the examination into Nigeria’s tertiary institutions, at the weekend, announced a two-week deadline extension for the registration.

The extension was announced on Saturday by the JAMB’s Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, after a stakeholders’ meeting which was held between Friday night and Saturday morning at the Sheraton Hotels, Abuja. The meeting, which was hosted by the JAMB management, had in attendance representatives of the Federal Ministry of Education (FME), National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), National Coordinator of SERVICOM, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), telecommunications companies and those from JAMB’s digital service providers.

Oloyede, who read the communiqué issued at the end of the meeting to the media, said the development was necessitated by the challenges being faced by the applicants, staffers and other stakeholders in their efforts to be registered to take part in the conduct of the examination.

He said contrary to the Board’s projection of about 2 million candidates’ yearly registration, only 1,134,424 candidates for both UTME and direct entry, could only be registered a few hours to the earlier deadline set for registration. This is low when compared to 2.1 million candidates the examination body registered within the same period in 2020.

The Registrar, who appealed to candidates for understanding, blamed the development on the use of the National Identification Number (NIN), which he noted was a government policy. He said: “The introduction of the National Identification Number (NIN) in 2020 as a registration requirement for UTME/DE is by law. This was, however, suspended for registration because of certain circumstances.

In the 2021 exercise the Board embraced the policy following the directive from the Federal Government. This year, however, the requirement for NIN is being enforced fully and field reports have shown a marked improvement in NIMC enrolment and other critical processes.” However, due to the difficulties, the Registrar disclosed that more than 600,000 prospective candidates, who had indicated interest to sit for the examinations, were yet to receive their codes from the telecommunications service providers, yet monies have been deducted from their airtime balances.

The meeting, therefore, identified some of the major causes of the challenges associated with the registration to include non-compliance with registration requirement, using wrong format to generate profile code while sending NIN to the Board’s USSD code (55019), input of incomplete or wrong NIN to generate profile code, using multiple cell phone numbers to generate profile code with same NIN, using special packages such as post-paid, promo bundles, Do Not Disturbed (DND) which block delivery of profile code to the candidates, and lastminute rush for NIN enrolment by prospective candidates On the part of CBT centres, Prof. Oloyede accused them of violation of registration procedures such as using inadequate registration points such as only one or two instead of approved minimum of 10, warehousing of candidates by prior collection of registration fee thereby constraining the candidates from registering at other available centres, charging applicants above the approved registration fee and cost of extraneous services, deployment of incompatible computer systems, and the use of untrained and unauthorised personnel to register candidates. Also, for the telecommunications companies, and the digital service providers’ poor service delivery, the meeting identified connectivity failure, non-reimbursement for undelivered codes generated, malfunctioning of software, and inadequate capacity. The stakeholders, however, agreed that these challenges would be appropriately resolved before the expiration of the twoweek extension.

But apart from the extension in the deadline for registration, Prof. Oloyede also announced the postponement of the mock examination, which was earlier scheduled to hold on Thursday, May 20. He announced May 29 as the new date. New Telegraph’s findings revealed that some of the expected participants in the conduct of the mock examination could not receive their codes meant for profile set up on the JAMB portals for registration. According to the Registrar, the meeting also concluded the main examination has been shifted from its earlier dates of between June 5 and 19 to now hold from June 19 to July 3.

He said: “Desirous of affording prospective candidates more time to complete their registration for the 2021 UTME/DE, which was expected to end on Saturday, May 15, 2021, stakeholders recommended a two-week extension for registration, to now end on May 29, 2021. “The extension is contingent upon stakeholders’ firm commitment to deliver on their respective responsibilities. “Accordingly, the 2021 Mock UTME earlier scheduled for May 20, 2021 will now hold on June 3, 2021 while the main UTME will hold from June 19 to July 3, 2021.

“JAMB will dispatch monitoring teams to all states of the federation and the FCT during the extension period.” He said that computer-based test centres (CBT) should stop selling ePINs, warning that flouting the directive would attract ‘appropriate sanctions.’ The board noted that “no CBT centre should collect money for ePIN and registration fees simultaneously,” warning the centres not to collect registration fee until completion of registration. The communiqué added: “Stakeholders reiterated the prohibition of group registration for candidates, with threat of sanction against any CBT centre that violates the instruction.

CBT centres are directed to open all 20 allowable registration points to ease congestion at the centres.” He added that DE candidates should specify their category of admission when procuring their pins, stressing: “However, where a DE candidate mistakenly purchases an ePIN for UTME, the selling point is hereby directed to rectify the error by swapping the ePIN to DE at no further cost to the candidate.”

He added: “Digital Service Providers are encouraged to expand their facilities, including the provision of redundancy links. “NIMC pledged to give priority attention to UTME/DE prospective candidates. “All prospective candidates and other users, who have not received a response from 55019, are requested to send their Tracking ID or NIN to nimc jamb2021@nimc.gov.ng. However, those who had obtained their NIN through unauthorised sources will have to go to the NIMC office to resolve their challenges.” He said NIMC had pledged to deploy special monitoring teams, and to sanction any NIMC agent found extorting candidates in the cause of enrolment.

“Against the background of its below par performance, one of the operators gave firm assurance of the optimisation of its services during the extension of the registration and examination. Stakeholders also implored the Federal Ministry of Education to discourage parents from seeking to register underage and immature candidates to pursue tertiary education ahead of their time,” the communiqué added. The new development, stakeholders agreed, would allow the applicants facing difficulties to have their issues resolved for them and be able to register for the examination. Similarly, candidates who are seeking admission to tertiary institutions in the on-going 2020/2021 calendar might be able to register for the examination if they are unable to secure admission.

Read Previous

I started my art collection business with N11,000 – Iyoghiojie

Read Next

Tackling security challenges in Lagos

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *