JAMB to hold mop-up exam for absent UTME candidates

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has resolved to conduct additional mop-up examinations for candidates who missed this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

The JAMB Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, stated this on Wednesday in Abuja at a meeting with key stakeholders to address the challenges encountered during the UTME.

He said the Board would accommodate the estimated 5.6 percent of candidates who missed the examination by organising a special mop-up exercise.

He added that JAMB had extended the opportunity to all the affected candidates, regardless of the reasons for their absence.

Oloyede said: “Normally, we hold one mop-up nationwide for those with one issue or the other.

“But this time, we are creating a new mop-up. Even those who missed the earlier examination due to absence, we will extend this opportunity to them.

“It is not that we are doing something extraordinary; in class, you make up an examination when students miss it for one reason or the other; we just don’t allow abuse of that.

“So we will allow all the candidates who missed the main examination for any reason to take part in this mop-up.”

The Registrar also clarified that UTME was a placement and not an achievement test.

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According to him, the purpose of the examination is to rank candidates for available spaces in institutions and not to measure intelligence or overall academic potential.

He said a high UTME score was not the sole determinant of admission, adding that combined performance, including post-UTME scores and school assessments, could significantly affect a candidate’s ranking.

“I want to say this clearly, particularly because I accepted responsibility, not because I do not know how to do the work.

“I say it for the fourth time that no conspiracy theory is relevant to this case.

“Something happened, like people who have been doing something well for years, and something just went wrong. That I should now throw them under the bus? No,” he stated.

Oloyede, who frowned at those exploiting difficulties to promote ethnic narratives, urged stakeholders to stop ethnic profiling in the education sector.

He stressed that many of the criticisms of JAMB’s operations were rooted in ignorance.

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