The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has said a total of 250,000 candidates have yet to sit for the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.

Speaking on Friday evening after monitoring some of the centres in Lagos, including Ogba, Agidingbi, University of Lagos, JAMB Registrar, Prof. Isaq Oloyede, explained that this was due to the rescheduling of the exam for some candidates.

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As such, 1.350 million had sat the UTME out of the registered 1.6 million candidates.

Oloyede, however, added that he was impressed by the performance of the Computer Based Centres and the conduct of the candidates.

“I am impressed by the performance of the centres and the conduct of the students. I’m happy that parents are largely kept out of the process. By now, we should have covered 1.5 million out of the registered candidates but because of the rescheduled candidates, we have about 250,000 candidates left. That is why we have about 370 centres that are still running because they have not finished the rescheduled candidates,” he said.

During a visit to the visually impaired centre at the University of Lagos, Oloyede added, “The committee handling this is doing a very good job. And I also believe that those who are incapacitated with one form of disability or the other are given sense of belonging. But from what I have seen, they are happy the government, the nation, now care about them.”

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He also told candidates that there was no other way to success but through hard work, saying examination malpractices had reduced in the country.

He continued, “The level of examination malpractice has gone down drastically. I will encourage candidates to know that there is no other way to success than working hard. Throughout the country, the level of examination malpractice, impersonation, is very minimal, in fact below the international standard for examination malpractice, particularly from Lagos. And now we have better devices to detect any form exam malpractice. If you look at the situation in the past, prior to this year, it’s possible for examinations to be disrupted. And examination that was scheduled for 8 am could start 8 pm. The difference now is one hour, after one and half hours, you cannot start that same exam. That’s why this year we have been canceling so many exams. Yes we have to cancel them because they are no longer valid, because the subjects scheduled for that session have been taken elsewhere.

“No candidate can write the exam after the time has passed. Nobody can help such candidate.”