JAMB: What candidates, parents, others are saying about conduct of 2019 UTME

Candidates, parents and CBT operatives have commended officials of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for the smooth process of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) so far.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) correspondent, who monitored the examination at the Digital Bridge Institute CBT centre, Abuja, on Friday, observed a smooth process.
However, there was a little hitch with the biometric machine’s inability to capture three candidates, who were to write with the first batch, but it was eventually resolved and captured the candidates.

The Jamb official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the exercise had been going on smoothly since Thursday.
She said the connectivity in the centre was okay and that they had achieved a lot of success since the examination began on Thursday.
“We have not had hitches as such, the only hitch we had yesterday was a candidate who was not able to sign out after sitting for the examination; candidates must sign in and out.

“She had to go to JAMB head office to complain because if you cannot be verified you cannot sit for the exam and those candidates that their fingers cannot be verified will have to go to the headquarters also to complain.
“For now, we just have three candidates who were not been able to sign in from the first batch but as you can see we are still trying.
“The exercise is still a success because each batch had 250 candidates, so if three have issues it cannot be said to be a failed process,” she said.
Mr Abdulaziz Olayinka, Deputy Manager, Admin, Digital Bridge Institute, said the examination started at 7;30am and had three batches of 250 candidates writing in each batch.
Olayinka, who said the process was smooth, however, confirmed the challenge with the machine verifying three candidates to sign in for the examination.
“On Thursday, we registered people but one person could not sign out after writing and the JAMB official directed her to go to JAMB head office to sort it out, JAMB has put in place measures to handle such issues.”
An affected candidate, Daniel Alex, who spoke with NAN, confirmed he was having issues with the biometric machine verifying him and would have to go to JAMB office to sort it out.
Other candidates, who wrote the examination, told NAN that the process went on smoothly and there were no technical issues with the computers.
A parent, Mrs Chiamaka Paul, who also spoke with NAN, commended the process at the centre, saying she brought her daughter as early as 6:30am, and the process commenced on time without any issue.
Over 1.8 million candidates, who registered for the UTME, were expected to sit for the examination from April 11 to April 15 in the 698 Computer Based Test centres across the country.