• Candidates in affected centres to be rescheduled – Registrar

Candidates whose centres experienced glitches in the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination would be rescheduled, Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Prof Is-haq Oloyede, has said.

The registrar appealed to the candidates to remain calm as they would be rescheduled to write the exam.

Oloyede, who made the appeal while fielding questions from newsmen after monitoring the exam in Kogo-Bwari, Abuja, said, so far, the UTME had been going on smoothly as only a centre had been reported to have encountered issues.

1, 985, 642 registered for the examination which commenced yesterday.

The UTME would end on April 25, 2024.

The results are expected to be released in the coming days.

Speaking with reporters, Oloyede said: “We appeal to the public to understand this, some centres will fail. I have heard of only one centre who has failed today.

“By the end of today, I expect about 10 per cent of the centres to have one problem or the other because we know the level of development in different parts of the country.

“We are not encouraging this but when it happens, please do not disrupt others.

“It is important to note that when a session fails because of a problem, you cannot bring those candidates to do session two, they will have to step aside and the headquarters will have to be contacted.

“The earliest time they can be scheduled will be after 4:30 p.m. so that those slated for section two and three can write and these candidates can now write for session four and in some cases, they can even be scheduled for the following day.”

At Airmax Computer Institute, Madalla, Niger State, the examination went on smoothly.

A representative of the centre told our reporter that they were almost done with the 2nd session.

On the expectations from 2024 UTME, Oloyede said the exercise is expected to be seamless following introduction of new mechanisms into the exam system.

He said: “Today’s examination is very important to us because we have done so much engineering that we have been trying to do in the last seven years and we are only successful today for the first time.

“Those who are fraudsters, who are doing all sorts of things, they know they are in trouble because for the first time we are able to do certain things that we have been aspiring to do.

“We have found out that some of the candidates are giving their details to fraudsters and fortunately, we thank the security agencies as they have been marvellously good to us.

“Almost all the persons that have been doing this (fraudulent activities) are already in their nets. I won’t want to mention the numbers but I’m very happy to tell you that they are in the nets.

“We thank the Inspector-General of Police, director-general of the State Secret Service (SSS), director-general of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corp, and the Nigerian Police Force National CyberCrime Centre (NPF-NCC).”

Oloyede, who commended the public, especially parents for their smooth conduct, said parents usually constituted problems for students in previous exercises.

Oloyede said the examination body was not comfortable with the award of scholarship to UTME best performing candidates on the basis of the exam alone as that would not capture other criteria that are factored in.

He said: “Yes, MTN and other people are giving scholarships to the highest scorers but we have always been discouraging them because you scored high in UTME doesn’t mean you are the best because some other factors will come in; the quality of your O’ Level will be added to it, Post-UTME scores will be added into it, if you are going to NDA, your physical exercise will be added to it before we can say this is the best, before we rank you. So, why ranking people prematurely? (The Nation)

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