The Joint Admissions and MatriculationS Board yesterday announced extension of registration for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) by two weeks.
The extension covers April 19 – 5th May.
The examination body also announced suspension of the conduct of its mock examination scheduled to hold yesterday in some selected centres across the country indefinitely.
JAMB registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, told reporters in Abuja the postponement of the UTME mock exam was due to failure from its technical partners.
He also announced shift in the conduct of UTME scheduled to begin on 6th May. The exercise, according to him, will commence on 13th – 20th May.
“The Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board wishes to apologise to candidates and other stakeholders.
“We could not go on with the mock examination and hereby announce extension of registration exercise of the 2017 UTME.
“Instead of the earlier announced April 19, the deadline for the sale of forms and registration will now extend to Friday, May 5, 2017.
“Consequently, the 2017 UTME has also been postponed to start on Saturday, May 13-20, 2017,” Oloyede said.
Justifying the action, the JAMB boss said: “The postponement of the UTME mock examination was due to failure from our technical partners.
“Yesterday (Friday) we told you people that if there was need for extension, we would do that.
“Today (Saturday), we put the system on trial and discovered that there were certain failures from our technical partners.”
Oloyede said the mock examination remained free for candidates willing to sit for it, adding the agency would pay the fees due to owners of computer based centres (CBT) to allow candidates write the examination.
“The mock examination earlier slated for Saturday, April 8, 2017 has been put on hold.
“This is because the appropriate rehearsal and test-running of the new stem has been substantially achieved.
“The plan was to trial-test the readiness of our facilities and address challenges that may likely confront the main examination.
“At this moment, we have realised that the plan to hold this mock examination was good for us.
“We are now in a better position to achieve better than we would have done without this trial testing. This is why the exercise is at no cost to candidates.
“The blessing that will trail the suspension of this mock examination and extension of registration deadline will manifest in our main UTME by next month,” he said.
(The Nation)
