The Registrar of Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Dibu Ojerinde met with some journalists in Lagos recently ahead of the forthcoming Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and spoke on many issues as affecting the board. MOJEED ALABI brings excerpts of the interview.

What are the striking breakthroughs recorded by the board in the recent time?

I assumed office in 2007 and that was when most of JAMB’s operations were done manually and the results were also being released four months after examinations.

Now, we have moved farther from these. We recently had a discussion with the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) on its invitation seeking to know what to do on how to ensure that only right candidates are moblised for the service. On our part, we have developed a compendium of details and list of various individuals admitted to various institutions, which we call JAMB Admission Year Book. So with this initiative, we now have the details of each of the student we send to various institutions across the nation.

Their details in terms of courses of study, sex, age, states of origin, among others, are with the board and this is a great asset to us and several other institutions including employers of labour. Now, NYSC believes that, now is the right time to use this very important document and various institutions have been calling the organisation to get hold of the document to ensure correct mobilisation of their graduating students.

The document is now the authentic list for NYSC and this is just part of the efforts to sanitise the system. The latest development is the introduction of the computer-based testing method for the forthcoming exam. We are using the CBT system to conduct part of the examination this year.

We have been able to secure a total of about 77 centres across the nation for the method. We are using the centres that are adequately equipped with internet facilities to avoid hitches. They include the University of Agriculture in Benue State, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, University of Ilorin, University of Lagos, Chams Computers office in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja, among others.

We are doing this to the extent that as soon as candidates step out of the examination halls, they receive the graphic representation of their results and we will only give the real scores when we have compared them with the results of the Paper pencil test (PPT) mode.

We have also got what is called DBT which is Dual-Based Testing mode. With this, we will give questions on the screen and allow the candidates to present their answers on paper. And I think this revolution is being endorsed by more and more people on daily basis.

Read more on :http://nationalmirroronline.net/new/graduates-not-in-jamb-admission-book-wont-go-for-nysc-scheme-again-ojerinde/