The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) said it had so far registered 1.5 million candidates for the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) across the country. The Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, disclosed this in an interview with the newsmen on Saturday at side line of activities marking the pre-JAMB mock examinations.
It will be recalled that the JAMB mock examinations earlier scheduled to hold on Saturday May 8 had been postponed to ensure smooth conduct of the exam. Oloyede said: “So far, it has even been better than our expectation, it was a mock, the intention was to test the technology and it proved to be perfect. “I think from what we are seeing, we are more than ready for the main examination. “At least 90 per cent of the examination centres have reported positively, there have been proper downloading and preparation; even after the exam we had uploaded responses of 80 per cent.
“We have done it to show that what works elsewhere across the world should work in Nigeria; we believe we can do it efficiently; we will continue to do our best. “We have registered over 1.5million candidates in less than five weeks; we believe that the reality we have put in place is good enough.’’ Oloyede said that 633 centres were used to conduct the mock examination for 153, 000 candidates across the country. In separate interviews, some of examination centre coordinators and candidates lauded JAMB for the mock initiative geared towards equipping the candidates to do better in the main exam. Mr Abdul-Aziz Olasoyinka, Technical Research Officer of Digital Bridge Institute, commended JAMB for the mock examination. He said it was apt in terms of preparation for future exams. Olasoyinka said: “Mock is a good experience because it will help the candidates to adequately prepare for the forthcoming examination. “It helps to evaluate how well the candidates have prepared and to improve themselves ahead of time.” Mr Olajide Adisa, Director of Outstations at JAMB, said although there were 230 capacities at the Computer Based Test (CBT) centre, plans were on to upgrade to 250 them before the main exam. “Even with that our specification is that at least we should have 10 per cent of same capacity as back-up in case of any breakdown. “We have already put measures in place to test them in the course of the mock examination, they will be ready before the main examination,” Adisa said. A candidate, Miss Hadiza Abdullahi, told NAN that the mock examination had improved her level of confidence ahead of the main exam. She described the examination as encouraging, adding that she expects to sit for the main examination well-equipped. Abdullahi, however appealed to the board to put measures in place to enable candidates wanting to register for future exam to do so with ease. Neswmen report that the mock examination held in three sessions, including the JAMB headquarter and CBT centre in Kogo community