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JAMB scores self high on repeat mock test

By Mohammed Abubakar, Abuja and Ujunwa Atueyi, Lagos
30 April 2017   |   4:20 am
The rescheduled Mock exam by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, (JAMB) took place in 633 centres across the country, yesterday.But unlike the first shot at the exercise on April 8, which was discontinued midway.....

JAMB confirmed that the operator borrowed sets of computers from other operators, when the Board was to accredit his centre, and with the examination around the corner, he found himself unable to meet the needs of the 250 candidates allocated to his center to take the examination.

• Centre Operator Eloped In Okene, Kogi State
• Centres Lament Low Turn Out Of Candidates

The rescheduled Mock exam by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, (JAMB) took place in 633 centres across the country, yesterday.But unlike the first shot at the exercise on April 8, which was discontinued midway, as a result of technical hitches, yesterday’s exercise went relatively smoothly. However, there was a report of a Computer Based Test Centre (CBT) operator in Okene in Kogi State, who eloped because he could not supply the required number of computers to the candidates in his centre.

JAMB confirmed that the operator borrowed sets of computers from other operators, when the Board was to accredit his centre, and with the examination around the corner, he found himself unable to meet the needs of the 250 candidates allocated to his center to take the examination.

At the time of filing this report, it was not clear what the candidates’ fate would be.The Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Is’haq Oloyede, told reporters during the monitoring of the exercise in Abuja that the Board would not assign any candidate to the operator, describing the action as unpatriotic and typical of some Nigerians’ desire to defraud their fellow countrymen.

Overall, he described the conduct of the Mock trial as a huge success, compared to the previous exercise, and commended the two network providers partnering with JAMB for the 2017 unified tertiary Matriculation examination, (UTME).

He said the Mock was just a trial to test the CBT Technology ahead of the UTME, and though it was a voluntary exercise, more candidates have indicated more interest than the Board anticipated.

According to him, 633 centres were created for the exercise nationwide involving over 153,000 candidates, but some centres had recorded upsurge of interested candidates, forcing the Board to create three sessions for the exercise.

Investigations, however, showed that a few centres experienced server breakdown, which disrupted the examination midway.Several centres within the Alimosho area of Lagos had a successful conduct of the examination, while few had technical and server challenges and, therefore, could not finish the examination.

Besides, some centre administrators complained of poor turn out of candidates, blaming it on the last incident, where JAMB cancelled the examination after candidates waited several hours.

At Eko Management Centre, Egbe, the initial process and commencement of the examination for the first batch went smoothly, until about 45 minutes into the exam, when the server broke down. All efforts by technical officers on ground to redeem the situation were unsuccessful.

After hours of waiting without success, candidates dispersed to their various homes, looking weary and disappointed.Victoria Ordia, who spoke with The Guardian, expressed bitterness at the situation, blaming her luck and the examination body for allocating the centre to her.

“My friends that wrote at other centres were successful. Why is mine different? I got to the centre around 7am, after the biometric capturing and other processes, the examination commenced only for the server to go off midway into the examination. I waited till 1pm, but they couldn’t resolve it, so I left,” she said.

But at Bafuto Computer Institute, it was a success story all through. Not only did JAMB officials arrived on time and put things in proper perspective before candidates’ arrival, the entire process went smoothly.

Centre Administrator, Adekunle Banjo, an engineer, said: “The purpose of this mock examination was for JAMB to test run their new system, and I can tell that it worked successfully. Before 6.30am to 7am, technical officials from JAMB have downloaded all the questions. The thumb printing and verification process went smoothly, while the examination itself was successfully carried out.”

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