SCORES of applicants seeking registration to sit for this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) were sent back home on Monday by the Covenant University, Ota, over what the university called ‘non availability’ of materials to register them.
Except for a few who want to register for direct entry, others who are to sit for UTME were asked to come back at no definite date to the ICT centre which is handling the registration and where exam will also take place for their registrations.
Some of the affected applicants told TribuneOnline that they felt highly disappointed that upon the claim by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, the organiser of the exam, that the ongoing registration exercise for the exam at various designated Computer-Based (CBT) centres nationwide is smooth and seamless.
For example, a parent, who gave his name simply as Akin, said he took his son to the school with the mind of getting the registration, which is billed to close on February 21, done, within a couple of hours, but the trip turned out to be a waste of time and money.
“I was told there was no materials and no certainty when the materials will be available,” he said. “They said only the help they could render for me and every other person around with me at the time which was between 10:00am and 12 noon was to drop our names and phone numbers with them in order to contact us when the material are available.
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“That was how we all left the place disappointed,” he said.
But when contacted, Mr Oladipo Okunbajo, Head Editorial Covenant, who spoke on behalf of the university, said he was not aware of the non-availability of materials.
He also claimed that the ICT centre where the UTME registration is taking (and the exam will also take) place is not being run directly by the university.
He said he would find out and call back to furnish our correspondent about the situation, but after a long waiting without calling, our correspondent called back again and at this time, the university’s spokesman, Mr Ayo, received the call and said “I think my colleague had already spoken to you and please, we’re in a busy period in the university and therefore I could not attend to your further enquiry.”
He then ended the conversation halfway.
However, TribuneOnline recalls that only what required by candidates at the accredited CBT centres for registration for UTME is the payment bank voucher of N4,000 per candidate covering exam (N3,500) and a guide book (N500) while the CBT centre will charge N700 as service charge and the materials that the Covenant University is referring to is uncleared.
and then