2019 UTME results still under scrutiny ― JAMB

2019 UTME results still under scrutiny ― JAMB

tribuneonlineng.com

THE Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has explained the delay in release of the results of the just concluded 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), saying it is a “programmed delay.”

The Board said the results are still under scrutiny following discovery that the cases of multiple registration and impersonation were massive.

JAMB made this known in its Weekly Bulletin made available to newsmen on Monday in Abuja, disclosing that over 100 candidates have been picked up by security agencies particularly for incident of multiple registration aimed at facilitating impersonation and “ghost” writing.

The Board, however, said the process of checking the results has been simplified, saying all a candidate needed to do was to send RESULT to 55019 using the same phone number that was used for registration and that the result would be returned as a Text Message.

JAMB Registrar, Professor Is-haq Oloyede, had vowed to ensure that no act of examination infraction could escape the eagle eye of the Board having engaged cutting edge technology to capture all activities taking place in all Computer Based Test (CBT) centres nationwide.

This is even as the Board announced that the results of all examinations held at two CBT centres in Abia State, namely Heritage and Infinity CBT Centre and Okwyzil Computer Institute Comprehensive School, Ugwunabo, Aba, have been cancelled due to widespread irregularities.

“By implication, all the results of all the examination sessions starting from 11th April to 18th, 2019 conducted by the Board at these two centres were cancelled,” JAMB said.

It said the action was taken after visual evidence derived from a careful review of the CCTV recordings by a panel of experts engaged by the Board, adding that some candidates who had not taken their examinations were however, relocated from the two centres to others when the officials of the Board discovered massive irregularities at the affected centres.

The Board in the Bulletin said: “After a thorough, rigorous and successful screening process to identify and apprehend examination cheats especially those involved in multiple registration through the combination of fingers for biometric capturing, group bulk registration by elite schools, which ended up mixing candidates’ data, JAMB would release the results of the 2019 UTME.

“The examination began on Thursday 11 April, 2019 and as usual the results are expected to be out within 24 to 48 hours as obtained in previous examinations held in 2017 and 2018.

“However, the Board does not want the release of the 2019 UTME results to be business as usual; hence the programmed delay, which is part of its deliberate efforts to properly scrutinize, identify and address all forms of examination malpractices, particularly as it pertains to ghost writing and multiple registrations.

“The Board has simplified the process of checking the 2019 UTME results conducted from Thursday 11th April, to Thursday 18th April, 2019 for candidates thereby precluding their unconscionable exploitation by shylock business centres which often take advantage of candidates,” the Board said.

Meanwhile, JAMB has disclosed that no less than 100 candidates have been arrested by security agencies nationwide as the Board recorded a major breakthrough in the efforts to sanitize the examination process and strengthen the integrity of the Board’s examination results.

The Board said the annual examination had been bedeviled by unwholesome practices of candidates, their parents and other accomplices.

JAMB particularly noted that the incident of multiple registration according to its findings with respect to biometrics, facial recognition and names among others, indicated that multiple registrations bloat the actual candidates’ registrations in any given year by as much as 30 per cent.

It said from the data available, this unwholesome act was not limited to any part of the country but cuts across all the states of the federation including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The Board said in its efforts to stamp out all forms of examination malpractices had synergised with security agencies nationwide to entrap the culprits resulting in their apprehension.

It said: “Among those arrested was a candidate who registered sixty-four (64) times in a bid to ‘ghost-write’ examination for 64 candidates since the examination runs for seven days with an average of three shifts per day per centre.

“It should be noted that the arrest of the suspects was made possible by the comprehensive and mandatory identity checks conducted on those taking the examination with a view to fishing out professional ghost writers before the release of the results.