JAMB withholds 80,889 UTME results over exam malpractices

ABUJA – THE Registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board. JAMB, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, Wednesday said that the Board withheld about 80,889 results of the Computer Based Test, CBT, Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME as a result of alleged examination malpractices. The JAMB Registrar also said that investigation was ongoing on the alleged malpractices, adding that at the end of it, candidates that were not culpable, their results will be released. Speaking in Abuja on the outcome of the UMTE, he said that some owners of Computer Based Test centres connived with some parents and candidates to cheat, stressing that names of the cyber café and internet owners that indulged in fraud were being compiled and that such centres will be delisted from the UTME next year. According to him, “So far we have released the results of 1,606,901 leaving us with 80,889, out of this 80,889 we have deliberately withheld 76,923 because of alleged malpractices in the centres where the examinations were held. “The remaining have issues like those ‎whose thumbs or biometrics couldn’t be verified and would not be allowed to do the examination because it would require further investigation. As of today 640 candidates could not do biometrics. “We have investigated why and found various reasons. Some are d‎ue to fraudsters, some candidates did registration in unacredited centres. “We are not saying all the 80,889 committed alleged infraction , in fact, those who committed the infraction would be less than 10 percent but when something happens in a centre pending the result of investigation, the best thing is to withhold the results. “We released the results within 24 hours to make a point, if we have wanted we could have allowed candidates to get their results immediately but if we had delayed, people would have said we couldn’t deliver. “If I am still the JAMB boss in 2018, I won’t release the results until ‎we have taken all issues and clear all cases against them because that is the international best practice. “And I want you to know that the results that haven’t been released will be released before the commencement of admission process for those who are not guilty of any infraction. ‎”And those who were not verified, would be made to write the examination and be part of those who are rewriting their examination as promised. And they would write it under my very eyes..” He said many private schools did so many funny things during the examination to cheat and that the Board will carry out supplementary examination for the candidates that had issues with the CBT, centres ‎or had issues with their cables. He however said, “But we won’t reschedule for those with excuses like, I had accident or I was sick.” The JAMB Registrar said the board was a step ahead of criminals because they didn’t give candidates same questions on each session and that candidates who had waited till the last day to register in order to see whether the examination paper would leak were shortlisted to write first.