By Kalu Onyemaechi
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has said it will take over the collection of the ₦700 registration fee for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), from 2022.
It said in its weekly bulletin issued in Abuja on Monday that it would collect the approved ₦700 registration fee at the pointp of registration and remit same to the various approved centres.
“JAMB will as from 2022 UTME exercise, be collecting the approved ₦700 registration fee on behalf of the various Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres along with its UTME registration fees.
“The board will then remit whatever is due to each registration centre to its bank account on a weekly basis or any timeframe acceptable to the centre owners.
“This laudable step was borne out of a painstaking review of the entire UTME registration process which has revealed some unethical and unacceptable practices by many CBT centres.
“It is to be noted that these centres were allowed to collect only ₦700 as registration charges, but some fraudulent centre owners misused that opportunity to engage in conduct unbecoming of respectable establishments.
“They indulge in massive extortion of candidates during the exercise,’’ the board stated.
It stated also that it had been compelled to make the UTME registration process cashless to put a stop to extortion.
It added that the new process would not in any way increase the cost of UTME registration.
“It is only the process of payment that has changed; not the cost.
“With the new policy, candidates simply walk into any registration centre and register without paying any fee.
“The fee hitherto payable to the centre would have been paid along with the cost of obtaining the e-PINS,’’ it stressed.
Meanwhile, the board said it had taken a decision to establish what it referred to as the “A/Level Task Team’’ and the “A/Level Qualification and Verification Databank’’ (ALQVD).
It explained the initiatives were to serve as monitoring bodies and repository respectively, for verified A/Level qualifications.
It said the measure, as well as others underway, were to ensure that the gains recorded in the education sector were not eroded.
“This follows revelations from a recent professional operation undertaken by the ICPC in conjunction with the Federal Ministry of Education.
“These revelations are contained in a recent statement by the ICPC about irregularities in the Joint Universities Preliminary Examinations Board (JUPEB).
“Concerns were expressed by major stakeholders about the faking of the Interim Joint Matriculation Board (IJMB) examination results.
“As such, it has become necessary for the board, as a moderator of the two examinations, to take appropriate action to put a stop to the unacceptable happenings.
“Just recently, one tertiary institution had cause to verify the IJMBE results of more than 146 candidates admitted with IJMB certificates and found only six genuine results,’’ JAMB lamented.
It stated also that it had introduced Computer Studies and Physical Health Education, to the existing 23 UTME subjects to make them 25, beginning from the 2022 UTME.
