•JAMB Registrar Prof. Ishaq Oloyede
Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has hinted of plans to begin prosecution of parents who aid their ward or children in examination malpractices.
Oloyede gave the hints while monitoring the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination UTME mop up exercise at the Technology CBT Centre in NAF Valley Estate, Abuja, reports Sunday Independent.
Lamenting the situation, the JAMB Registrar said parents are the major problem facing the conduct of public examinations as they found malpractices even to the detriment of their children.
“Parents found to be financing examination malpractice schemes for their children would soon face investigation and possible prosecution,” he told reporters on Saturday.
Oloyede however revealed that more than 80 percent of the 98,232 candidates eligible for the nationwide mop-up did not show up for the exercise.
He said it was not surprising especially when the Board had intensified security measures targeting impersonators and exam cheats.
He said only about 12 percent out of about 90,000 registered candidates showed up across the country.
Justifying the mop-up exams, he said it is typically organised for a few thousand candidates with legitimate reasons such as illness or verified technical issues to miss the main UTME.
“Every year, we do mop-up. And it is normally for about 4,000, 5,000 students. For illness, a genuine excuse could not take the exam. Or who after review, we saw had technical problems in their centers. This is normally for about 4,000, 5,000. Every year we do that,” he said.
He explained that this year’s large mop-up pool was necessitated by allegations of widespread absences in the main examination.
According to him, the Board opted to give everyone a second chance—while also leveraging intelligence gathered from security agencies.
“In the wisdom of the management and our stakeholders, we felt everybody (who missed the exam) should be given an opportunity, whether for whatever reason that you did not make it. But again, we also knew that we are wiser.
“Given the work that we have done in conjunction with the SSS and the police, we have been able to get some intelligence, some information that we could use to really apprehend those who are impersonating in particular.
“So, we now felt that it’s better to keep the door open as wide as possible. At least to apprehend (impersonators)…And then you can see that the performance (turnout) throughout the country is far, far below what you would expect.
“Those who even indicated coming out of the 90,000, there are about 12,000 plus. Who eventually, who indicated that they were coming,” he said.
He added that some CBT centres expecting 250 candidates per session recorded fewer than 20 attendees, which he said was anticipated.
“Because what you have is a bunch of syndicates, particularly those who say they are tutorial centers. They are some private school proprietors who have become syndicates of examination malpractice,” Oloyede said, adding that with the determination of the Ministry of Education to lead this war, exam malpractice would be reduced to the barest minimum.
The JAMB boss also disclosed that some individuals attempted to cheat by falsely declaring themselves as albino in a bid to exploit facial recognition vulnerabilities.
“We have never had even up to 100 albinos in any year. But this year, you have 1,787 albinos, those who declared to be albino, 1,787.
“So, out of two million, we now found out that one centre registered 450 out of this 1,000 as if all albinos in Africa decided to go to that centre.
“Why are they sourcing a number of albinos? They are not albinos. It is because the AI that they were using had certain features. If they do not declare themselves as albino in our form, you will look more critically.”
