The JAMB Registrar, Is-haq Oloyede, has blamed the coronavirus pandemic for the poor performance of candidates in the just-concluded Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.

While appearing on a live programme on a Nigerian Television Authority’s tagged “Weekend File”, Oloyede confirmed that this year’s UTME results were poorer than those of three years ago.

The registrar said the COVID-19 pandemic affected the smooth running of the academic calendar.

He said 99.65 per cent scored 120 marks and above out of the possible 400 in 2021as against 99.80 per cent in 2020.

Oloyede said, “In 2018, it was 99.99 per cent but in 2019 it dropped to 99.92. Also, in 2020, 69.82 per cent of the total candidates who sat the UTME scored 160 and above but in 2021, it reduced to 65.62 per cent.

“But this is expected. In Nigeria, we think we do not live in a global community. All informed education experts understand why it is so. They knew the point at which we were in the academic calendar before the examination was taken in 2020 and in 2021.

“Last year, when they took the examination, they (the students) had gone far in their syllabus. But this year, they suffered incomplete academic sessions; they had to cope with emergency online lessons and even many other disturbances like insecurity,” he said.

(The PUNCH)