The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, on Saturday expressed satisfaction with the conduct of the rescheduled 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
Adamu, who alongside Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Ishaq Oloyede, monitored the examination at the Computer Based Test (CBT) centre located in Mambila Barrack’s, Asokoro, Abuja, expressed delight over the smooth conduct of the exercise.
“I am very happy with what I have seen. The (temporary) holding room (for candidates), and the arrangement in where they are taking the examination, I think everything is in order.
While stating that no negative incident was recorded in the conduct of the UTME at the CBT centre, the Minister, however, made a case for a temporary holding place for candidates waiting for the scheduled time of the exam.
Meanwhile, JAMB’s Head of Public Affairs and Protocol, Dr Fabian Benjamin, in an interview on Saturday, said about 80,000 candidates, who could not sit for the 2023 UTME within their scheduled time owing to no fault of theirs, sat for the rescheduled UTME across the country.
According to the JAMB’s spokesperson, candidates affected include those who were verified at their centres but could not sit for the examination, those who could not be biometrically verified, those with mismatched data among others.
He said the deployment of innovations in the conduct of the exam paid off bountifully as the exercise recorded the lowest reported cases of infractions.
“In this year’s UTME, issue of examination malpractices was reduced to almost zero level,” Fabian said.
On when the results of the rescheduled UTME would be released by the examination body, Fabian said the board’s management would analyse the conduct of the exercise after its conclusion before it will a take decision on that.
The Board had on Tuesday released results of candidates who had earlier took part in the exam that commenced on Tuesday, 25th April.
A total of 1,586,765 candidates indicated interest to sit for the 2023 UTME.
Reporting by Daniel Adejo; Editing by Chinasa Ossai and Annabel Nwachukwu