The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced that from 2018, no candidates, invigilators or centre operators will be permitted into its examination centres with wristwatches, pens, and unscreened eyeglasses, among other items in efforts towards curbing examination malpractices.
Revealing this yesterday during a meeting with the owners and operators of Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres across the country at the Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH), Lagos, Oloyede blamed the centre operators for most of the corrupt practices that were noticed during the conduct of the 2017 edition of Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME).
Oloyede, who revealed that more than 600 CBT centres have been accredited so far, added that electronic jammers, lens detectors, among others, will be installed at all the centres across the country.
His words: “So, to all the CBT centres, the rule this year is that electronic jammers will be installed across all the centres to deactivate all mobile phone networks because we have seen what many of them have done with phones and other electronic tools.
“The lens detectors will also be made available at all centres to ascertain the status of all eyeglasses if a candidate or anyone must go in with it. Even if the Minister or JAMB Registrar visits any centre during our exam, they cannot go in with those banned items.”
He accused some of the centres of intentionally extorting the candidates, and that rape attempts were even recorded by some operators.
According to Oloyede, at a particular centre at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), an operator had attempted to rape a candidate who sought assistance for her scores to be jacked up by the operator.
He said: “We kept monitoring the scene from our office through the CCTV and at a point because the abuser has technical skills, he attempted to cover the CCTV lens at the server room, but we immediately drafted our men there before the ‘real action’ started.
“The matter is currently in court as we are prosecuting the culprit. But the case of the attempted rape is really not what baffled me, but the reaction of the mother of the girl involved.
While the girl agreed the operator demanded sex, the mother had demanded extra marks from JAMB for her daughter. That is the level of corruption and moral decadence in our society.
“In fact, some centres even collected N1,000 as gate fee while others passed cables to inner rooms regarded as VIP rooms where machineries are deployed to work for the candidates.”
Oloyede added that JAMB is committed to reducing to the barest minimum malpractices during its examinations, saying he is sure that 90 per cent of the fraud committed during the examinations is aided through the CBT centres.
His words: “But as you are making efforts to outsmart us, we are also bold to let you know that with technology, we are ahead of you.
“We cannot claim to be able to detect all the frauds, but I can assure you that those that we get will be shown the way out of business, particularly with JAMB. In fact, your details will be taken to the Corporate Affairs Commission and any business that has any link with you will surely have nothing to do with JAMB now and in future.”
He said customised browser will be installed on all computer systems to be used across the country, saying any system that could not accommodate the browser cannot be used for the conduct of UTME.
Oloyede further disclosed that the examination body generates an average of N100 million every year from correction of errors made by candidates during their registration, and blamed the Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres, candidates and parents for most of the errors.
He said even though JAMB is interested in raising its revenue, it would not be happy making people pay such money that could be easily avoided.
The JAMB Registrars noted that a total of 72 CBT centres have been deregistered over cases of malpractices.
Meanwhile, all centres that will participate in the 2018 UTME registration and examinations must be prepared to meet all the conditions set by the examination body.
He listed the conditions to include; the use of wired CCTV across all centres; all examinations should be made available for monitoring at the JAMB headquarters in Abuja; cancellation of all makeshift CBT centres, and that all CBT centres must have toilet facilities provided within the examination halls, and that centres without such facilities will not be accredited.
