The House of Representatives, on Tuesday, gave a 24-hour ultimatum to the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Is’haq Oloyede, to appear before it over the reported hitches being faced by applicants of this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME).
The House equally mandated the Committee on Basic Education to direct JAMB to extend the one month deadline by at least another month for the registration of candidates for the UTME, in order to create more space for prospective applicants.
Consequently, the House asked JAMB to deploy safety equipment at each centre to forestall stampede.
The House also urged JAMB to specify the requirements, including safety measures, which qualify any centre to participate in the conduct of UTME Computer-Based Test.
The House resolution followed a motion moved by Honourable Danburam Abubakar Nuhu, who informed the House that “2017 registration for the UTME is ongoing and JAMB has given one month deadline for the completion of the registration by the high number of prospective candidates across the country.”
On the need for extension, he said “in the 2016 UTME exercise, about 1.6 million applicants registered, out of which about one million passed, while the 2017 exercise might reach two million across the country given the growing number of applicants.”
On safety measure, he said “some of the approved centres are registering 250 applicants at a time and most of them are not spacious, do not have adequate number of computers, some of which have naked wires exposed and are haphazardly arranged on ordinary planks, thus lacking in safety requirement in case of an emergency.”
The motion scaled through when it was put to voice vote by the Speaker, Honourable Yakubu Dogara.
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