The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has postponed the computer-based Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) for applicants who suffered technical difficulties at their examination venues.
Affected applicants, whose failure to take examinations was not their fault, will now take the exam on Saturday, May 6th, according to JAMB spokesman Fabian Benjamin in a statement issued on Monday.
He said the development was part of the choices reached at the JAMB management’s emergency meeting held on Sunday.
According to JAMB, just 80,166 of the 1,586,765 students who expressed an interest in taking the test are still waiting.
The board delayed examinations for applicants who had technological difficulties on the first day of the exams last Tuesday, setting new dates between April 26th and May 2nd.
New Date
“As part of the decisions reached at the end of an emergency management meeting held on Sunday, 30th April, 2023, the Board has fixed Saturday, 6th May, 2023, for all categories of candidates who have not sat their examination, as listed below, to take their examination,” Mr Benjamin said.
He said that impacted applicants must print their slips by Thursday in order to know the timing and location of their assessment.
Affected Candidates
Candidates who were confirmed at their centres but were unable to take the test, those who could not be biometrically validated, and those with mismatched data were among those impacted, according to Mr Benjamin.
Abuja Centre challenge
The second group, according to JAMB, includes applicants who were due to take the 2023 UTME at the Beautiful Beginning CBT Centre in Apo, Abuja, but did not show up. He said that the test has been postponed for Saturday, May 6th.
“The rescheduling of all the candidates who missed the examination is due to a mistake in the address of the centre, which resulted in some candidates missing their examination,” he said.
“It should be noticed that the centre’s name, Beautiful Beginning CBT Centre, Apo, Abuja, included “Gwagwalada” rather than “Apo,” which misled applicants.
“The board would not abdicate its responsibilities and, as a result, has rescheduled all candidates posted to the centre who could not sit their examination due to the wrong address or any other reason, to ensure that no candidate misses the examination,” Mr Benjamin said.
The third group includes applicants who were rescheduled to take the test on April 27th but did not get notice.
“Some of these candidates were unable to receive the notification because their school retained their message-receiving channels, such as their SIM cards, e-mail addresses, and profile codes,” Mr Benjamin said.
As a result, he cautioned schools that the UTME is not a school-based test.
Other affected candidates
Other candidates affected by the change, according to the board, are those with mismatched data and those whose centres could not carry their full capacity of 250 and thus had to be “batched, with some of these centres taking 150 candidates rather than the 250 allotted to them per session.”
“Some CBT centres mismatched the data of some candidates they registered for obvious reasons.” This was also made feasible by the candidates’ irresponsibility in failing to use the Board’s availability of multiple screens to monitor the progress of their registration,” he stated.
He said that the process of correcting their data is underway, and that they would also be scheduled to take the test on Saturday, May 6th.
“Some of these remaining candidates in the batched sessions have also been rescheduled and have taken the examination, but some are yet to do so,” he said according to Premium Times.
