Regina Otokpa 
…apologise for the inconvenience, promise seamless UTME.
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has said it would reschedule the 2023 optional Mock Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), for candidates who registered but were unable to sit for the examinations due to technical glitches.
Some candidates who sat for the examination in a few out of the 725 centres nationwide, had experienced technical glitches which led to delays in writing of the examination or a total inability to sit for it.
Recall that the Board had earlier announced it was introducing new technologies to address centre failures and examination malpractice and had asked for patience from the 176,408 candidates who registered for the mock UTME, should any issue(s) arise during the examination
At Ade-Ola International Schools in Kubwa Abuja, candidates who were supposed to sit for the mock UTME at 7:00 am were rescheduled for 2:00 pm due to technical glitches.
According to the owner of the CBT Centre, Mrs Mercy Olaosegbe they were unable to log in to the network at exactly 7:00 am for the first batch to commence their exams due to technical issues suspected to have occurred from JAMB.
She said: “Our examiners and NSCDC officials were here on time, but the first batch of students that were supposed to start at exactly 7 am did not write as a result of the delay we experienced. The technical problem was not from us but from the JAMB which they quickly rectified.”
Olaosegbe however appealed to parents to stop accompanying their children to the examination venues to avoid distractions, as many parents who crowded the school environment were seen shouting and expressing their anger and disappointment in various forms.
Meanwhile, the Board as said it would look at all issues thrown up by the mock exercise and act accordingly for a better and enhanced exercise.
A statement by JAMB’s Head, of Public Affairs and Protocol, Dr Fabian Benjamin on Thursday in Abuja, noted that the hitches encountered at some of the CBT centres leading to delay or inability of exams to hold had been anticipated, adding that affected candidates would resit for the examination at a later date at no cost
He said: “As previously anticipated, the exercise witnessed some hitches in a few centres with some candidates unable to sit the examination. These candidates will be rescheduled to sit the examination at a date to be announced later at no cost to them.
“The introduction of the Mock-UTME by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board was aimed at providing the Board with the opportunity to assess innovations that would be used for the main examination as well as allow candidates to have hands-on experiences in the CBT environment.
“The exercise, which was introduced over six years ago, has availed the Board a unique opportunity to trial innovations that have significantly improved the Board’s ability to deliver world-class assessment exercise.
“It would be recalled that before the conduct of the 2023 exercise, the Board had, in a statement, disclosed that it would be introducing some new measures that had never been used before and would want to use the opportunity of the mock exercise to assess their functionality.
“The Board would want to use this opportunity to apologise to all candidates for any inconvenience they might have experienced on account of this.
“This is part of a development process aimed at enhancing the Board’s efforts at improving the quality, security and sanctity of its services and as well as using the same to herald the next phase of its transformational agenda.
“The exercise also gave the Board the rare opportunity of fine-tuning this process for better results.
“The Board expresses its appreciation to the candidates and their parents for their understanding and pledges to ensure that the system for which their sacrifice is made is perfected.
“The gains from the exercise cannot be quantified as the Board has taken note of the challenges thrown up and had, consequently, been better placed to deliver a seamless UTME exercise come April 2023 in line with its projections.
“The Board will continue to appeal to candidates and the general public for their understanding as it would not relent in its efforts to devise new and better ways of enhancing the quality of large-scale assessments in Nigeria.”