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Minister orders refund of excess payment for post-UTME test

By Kanayo Umeh, Abuja
10 January 2018   |   4:14 am
Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, has directed 42 tertiary institutions that charged more than the N2,000 official fee for post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) test to refund the excess payment.

Education Minister, Adamu Adamu

• 2018 examination to hold March 9 to 18
•JAMB records low registration

Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, has directed 42 tertiary institutions that charged more than the N2,000 official fee for post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) test to refund the excess payment.

The Registrar, Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, disclosed this yesterday in Abuja at a stakeholders’ meeting. He said some institutions had started complying with the directive.

The minister had warned tertiary institutions in the country against charging above the stipulated N2000 for the test to reduce the burden on parents. Adamu also warned that universities that charged more than N2,000 for the examination would be sanctioned and made to refund the excess payment.

“They have started refunding the money and the candidates are reporting back to us. The minister directed that they should pay the money to a non-religious orphanage owned by the government or individuals in any situation whereby a candidate could not be traced. He has put his feet down that all excess charges should be refunded,” Oloyede said.

The JAMB registrar decried the low registration of candidates even as the board fixed the 2018 UTME for March 9 to 18. He said February 6 had been fixed as the closing date for sale of registration form, lamenting that at the time of this report yesterday, only 283, 319 registrations had been made across the country.

Oloyede said due to the criticisms that trailed the sale of entry for just one month in the past years, the board decided to allow it last for two months so that every willing candidate could purchase, fill and submit the form.

“We opened entry from December 6, 2017 to February 6, 2018, but one month after, less than a quarter of the two million candidates expected for the examination this year have registered,” he said.

According to Oloyede, JAMB is envisaging mass purchase of the registration form shortly before the closing date, therefore the mock examination has been slated to hold in the first week of February across the country.

He lamented that in the last year’s examination, candidates spent about N100 million for correction of errors caused by Computer Based Test (CBT) centres. He said the board had corrected the situation.

“This time around, candidates type their names by themselves. This will eliminate wrong spelling of names and other data. We are doing this to stop those who are extorting the candidates,” Oloyede stated.

Oloyede insisted that wristwatches, pen and pencil, other than the required HB pencils, remained prohibited in the examination halls, starting from the next exercise.

The registrar who said examination officers were also affected by the new development, disclosed that JAMB had uncovered new ways of cheating in examination and discovered that sophisticated wristwatches were parts of the gadgets used to perpetrate the malpractice.

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