Oluwashina As the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) prepares to administer its Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in May, University Dons who have been monitoring the development, said despite the challenges confronting the board, it should review its current policy to enable candidates surmount the problems, improve on its system, while calling for support from Nigerians.
The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has always been enmeshed in controversies over its activities in the last few years, the controversies are getting louder this year, with the registration process which brought untold hardship to candidates; and the delayed cancellation of the mock Computer Based Test(CBT) for the 2016/17 matriculation examinations.
As a result, the Board had to extend the registration date for the 2017 UTME and also extended the deadline for sale of forms and registration for the exams from the earlier announced April 19 to May 5.

Oluwashina Oluwashina The exams body also postponed the 2017 UMTE from May 13 to May 20, attributing the postponement of the mock to the failure from its technical partners.
The Registrar of the Board, Is- haq Oloyede, consequently, apologised to candidates for the sudden changes, saying, “we could not go on with the mock examination and hereby announce extension of the registration exercise of the 2017 UTME.
This is because the appropriate rehearsal and test- running of the new system has been substantially achieved. The plan was to trial-test the readiness of our facilities and address the challenges that may likely confront the main examination.
“At this moment, we have realised
that the plan to hold this mock examination was good for us. We are now in a better position to achieve better than we would have done without this trial testing.
This is why the exercise is at no cost to the candidates. “It is our strong conviction that this exercise is an experience for us.

Oluwashina Oluwashina Our systems analysis has revealed interesting findings that will engender a seamless and successful 2017 UTME exercise.”
These may not have gone down well with some sections of the society as they called for the scrapping of the board or that its functions should be modified drastically.
According to reports, “a key problem behind JAMB’s failure is the unnecessary centralisation of the admission process, which puts much more pressure on the board than it could cope with.
Ever since it was created in 1978 and subsequently, given sweeping powers by Decree No. 33 of 1989 to conduct the matriculation exams and also process the admission of students into the tertiary institutions, it has been struggling to cope with this mandate. It is now time to devolve many of those functions to the respective institutions or scrap it altogether.
Some other analysts have asked the Registrar of the Board, Professor Ishaq Oloyede to voluntarily resign his position for the lopsided nature of the ongoing JAMB registration.