The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Monday, explained that it would not extend the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, and Direct Entry, DE, registration because it was working on what it described as “tight schedule.”
To this end, it insisted that the registration would come to an end on March 26, 2022 as earlier scheduled.
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, said the board would not extend the exercise because it was working on a tight schedule.
Oloyede, who spoke at the Global Distance Learning Institute, Abuja, while monitoring the registration, said so far, between 1.5 million and 1.6 million candidates had been registered, noting that the closing days of the exercise were experiencing low turnout of candidates across the country.
He said only one candidate turned up for registration at the centre, instead of the usual 200 candidates per day, while registration across the country reduced to less than 20,000 two days ago, against the 70,000 to 80,000 daily registrations.
He said: “Today is March 21, 2022, we still have five days to go and you can see how vacant the CBT centres are. So, we are telling you so that nobody on the 26th will have the guts to tell us to extend. Now, we have registered about 1.5 million to 1.6 million candidates; so, we are good to go.
“You can see how vacant the registration centres are. As big and as efficient as this centre is you have only one candidate and look at your time. So, it shows clearly that candidates are not coming out or we may have exhausted the number of candidates that are eligible for registration.
“We are working on a very tight schedule because of the other examination bodies which have their slot and we cannot encroach into the slot of NECO or WAEC or NABTEB. We have a very tight schedule. And that is why we continue to say yes, we have capacity to register 100,000 in a day.”
The JAMB boss urged prospective candidates to come out and register, adding that the board was taking the campaign to the public to call its attention to the fact that students were not coming out to register, so there could be no appeal to the board to extend the date.
Oloyede urged the media to take a tour of the CBT facilities in Abuja and witness the low turnout of candidates for registration in the closing days of the exercise.
On the complaints by CBT centres over the high cost of diesel and energy problems in the country, Oloyede said the board was trying to open a discussion with the NNPC and that after due consultations, it would do something about it.
He said: “Since we have pegged our charges at N700, they are complaining because they felt that it is practically impossible to run. We are not oblivious of the situation. We are in consultation with NNPC.
‘’We want to know what the situation is and by God’s grace, when we have the appropriate advice from the NNPC, we would address the issue.
“We are appealing to our partners, the CBT centres, to please be patient with us and give efficient services to our people. We are not wicked; we wouldn’t want people to run at a loss, but this is where we are; we would see what we can do. We would take appropriate action.”
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