The House Committee on Basic Education has thrown its weight behind the Computer Based Test (CBT) being used for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), saying that it is in tandem with global dictates to sanitise the education system

Committee Chairman Zamari Mohammed in company of some of the members of the committee stated this on Wednesday in Abuja during a fact-finding visit to the CBT centre in Bwari for candidates sitting for the rescheduled examination having missed the 2016 UTME due to the relocation of their centres.

Mohammed, who interacted with candidates and journalists, stated that the House was in support of the CBT. When asked whether he was contradicting the earlier stand of the House on CBT, he said the House had never taken a position on CBT.

He noted that the Paper Pencil Test (PPT) was cumbersome and characterised with several irregularities and unwholesome activities. “The world is flying and we cannot be crawling,” he said.

Hon. Mohammed empathetically stated that the House is putting its weight behind CBT given its many advantages.

According to him, those who write the examination outside Nigeria are leveraging on the flexibility and advantage of CBT.

“Today, those candidates are writing a rescheduled examination some of whom are sick because of the flexibility of CBT without which they would not have had this opportunity,” he stated.

The committee chairman used the opportunity to advise parents to be patient and also to know that the process is not as complex as it was made to be.

Mohammed called on JAMB to identify the hitches and address them. He said CBT is the way forward, that the House is going to support JAMB in putting infrastructure together to see that the new examination regime is stress free.

JAMB Registrar, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, who was elated with the smooth conduct of the rescheduled examination, explained that the rescheduling was one more evidence of the flexibility of CBT. He said if not for CBT there is no way the Board could have conducted a rescheduled examination.

Ojerinde told journalists that JAMB’s major objective is to completely eliminate malpractice through the conduct of CBT.

The JAMB CEO said that the 21st century child in Nigeria irrespective of where he or she comes from has no problem with CBT.

“The complexity developed by perpetrators of malpractice can never be detected by Paper and Pencil Test,” Ojerinde stressed.

He pleaded with Nigerian to give CBT a chance, promising that they will not regret it.

•Photo shows Chairman, House Committee on Basic Education, Hon. Zamari Mohammed.

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