JAMB Kicks against Extortion of Candidates by Private Schools

By Funmi Ogundare

The Registrar of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, has expressed concern that some elite schools in the country are compromising its admission process by collecting illegal examination fees from students for their Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination ( UTME).

Oloyede disclosed that these schools collected between N8,000 and N16,000 against the official fee of N4,700 from candidates to compromise the process.

He stated this yesterday during his oversight visit to some of the Computer Based Test (CBT) centres in Lagos.

The registrar said that the JAMB would write to the Federal Ministry of Education to sanction these schools for depriving parents from enjoying the benefits of the reduced cost of the UTME by the government.

He said: “That is why the schools are bringing their students in mass to the CBT centres for registration and in the process, they will miss their data and the candidates will be complaining.

“The government has reduced the money to N4,000 with the N700 registration fee collected at the CBT centres. The ministry has said you don’t need to collect extra money from candidates.”

Oloyede identified this unwholesome practice as one of the reasons schools are involved in examination malpractices to justify the high examination fee they have collected from the candidates.

He said that a total of 410,517 candidates have registered for UTME while 12,040 candidates registered for direct entry in 787 centres and still counting.

The registrar disclosed that the board is partnering with EFCC and ICPC to ensure that any public university that failed to comply with its laid down principles would be questioned.

Oloyede described its process of admissions as transparent, adding that the issue of the National Identification Number (NIN) remained mandatory for all candidates sitting for its exam.

“The fact that you have a USSD code means you have a NIN. These candidates are intelligent enough. They know what happened last year. They have not gone to the NIMC office to struggle to get their NIN. Between last year and this year, I have not had cases of candidates struggling for NIN,” he said.

He also observed that wrong subjects combinations by candidates in the process of registration is one of the factors that militate against their being admitted into tertiary institution in the country despite having a high UTME’s score.

Oloyede expressed concern that the disparity in the reward system might be the reason why fewer candidates register for admission into the colleges of education.