IT appears that the pains undergone by the millions of Nigerians who sat for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination; UTME annually is continuous, endless and torturous. The just concluded UTME Paper Pencil Test, PPT mode across 3,168 centres in 378 examination towns in the country and the releasing of the results of the test recently revealed the on-going pains endured by the candidates who in their large numbers struggled to secure the limited admission vacancies in the tertiary institutions across Nigeria put together, including universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, and recently the innovative institutions.


In less than twenty-four hours before the PPT mode of the UTME was conducted, a tragic motor accident was recorded involving nine candidates who were travelling to the towns of their UTME centres. The accident which occurred in Awka, Abia state, according to media reports claimed the lives of nine candidates travelling from Port Harcourt to Aba for the exams. According to the reports, the items recovered from the accident scene gave clue to the identity of the candidates, as the items were said to be examination materials.


Similarly, in Lagos, a national daily reported that the UTME was held amid delay in capturing the candidates’ biometric data, malpractices, and shortages of question papers. The delay in capturing the candidates’ biometric data resulted to delay in the start of the exams long after the official time of 9:00 AM the exam was supposed to have begun. While some of the candidates were left in doubt after the examination without capturing their data. That has generated much controversies as results of the test are been released by Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, the body saddled with the responsibility of conducting the test.



Many candidates are yet to access their test scores via the result checking portal online. This has generated protests by the thousands of candidates who sat for the examinations and whose results are been withheld by the examination board across the country. Achanya Isreal who sat for the test is finding it difficult to check his test score online. He disclosed to Weekend Observer that despite the fact that his biometric was captured in the centre where he took the test, he is unable to check his result. According to him, whenever he goes to a cyber café to check his score on JAMB’s result portal, he gets a response that indicates his biometric was not captured on the day of the examination.


JAMB on its part gave reasons why some of the candidates’ results were not released. According to the Registrar of the board, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde while speaking in a news conference on the release of result in Abuja disclosed that the board had withheld 12,110 results for possible disciplinary actions. That was after thorough processing of answer scripts of the candidates who sat for the examination were discovered to have been involved in some forms of malpractice during the conduct of the examination.


In a related development, in some centres in Lagos state, it was also reported that some candidates were seen shortly before the commencement of the examination, copying supposedly answers from their cell phones into small sheets of papers, and hiding it in secluded parts of their body to avoid the security checks. Others, who proved to be smart, entered the examination halls with their cell phones, making it easier for them to cheat in clear breach of the examination rules and regulations. This gives clue to the screening of results of 68,309 candidates from various centres across the federation to ascertain the culpability of the 12,110 results of candidates withheld by the board.


During the examination, there were instances where candidates do not have all their subjects’ combination in one booklet, and there were also situations where other students were left with no questions papers as there were no left over questions papers across the subjects’ combination. Supervisors at some of the centres, where shortages were reported had to managed the situations through instructing affected candidates to switch the question papers with those who had theirs complete. For some of the candidates these create a kind of chaos and anxiety for those affected by lack of adequate examination materials.


According to Adesina Sam Oluwasegun, “it is high time the federal government scrapped JAMB, as the exams lacks credibility and end up frustrating candidates who struggles to gain admission into the limited spaces in the higher institutions of learning.” Adesina said, out of the 40,692 candidates results that were announced by the board as invalid because of multiple shading or no shading at all, it is possible that those affected by the shortages of materials were among the numbers affected because the incident must have create anxiety in them, which in turn must have resulted in them shading multiple or forgetting to shade at all.
Sam added that most candidates in their bid to outdo the other go extra mile to have access to questions for the exams long before the actual commencement of the UTME. He also added that invigilators also aid the candidates in cheating during the exams. There were reports of exams centres, where candidates were arranged according to their sitting position to favour them in cheating during the exams. At some other centres, candidates were asked to pay sum amounting to minimum of a thousand naira before been allowed entrance into the examination venues. For those centres where such incidents were recorded to have taken place, the registrar of JAMB disclosed that the centres would be screened to ascertain their culpability and centres found culpable in aiding malpractice would not be used by the board in conducting its future tests.


Therefore, it was clearly evident during the 2013 UTME, that most candidates employed diverse means to gain them the chance of scoring higher marks, for qualifications for the Post-UTME tests and subsequent admission. Aside the wide cases of reports of malpractice revealed during the test, large numbers of candidates’ results are been withheld and screened by the examination board.


Despite the high rate of most candidates cutting corners to gain advantage of been admitted by ensuring that they score higher marks in the exams, other candidates had put in extra efforts to ensure that they are also admitted for the limited spaces in the tertiary institutions across the country. Before the release of the tests results Vanguard Learning disclosed that these candidates, unlike the others who preferred to cut corners, put in extra efforts in their private studies, improving on strategy in beating time in answering questions during the exams.


Chinere Ijeoma, a candidate who sat for the recently conducted UTME Paper Pencil Test, disclosed to a national daily before the exams, that she read extra hard and read till daybreak, to ensure that she scored high points in the test. For her, she had developed that strategy so as to avoid cheating during the exams. The strategy according to her had become part and parcel of her, as it has taken centre-place in her life.


Another candidate, Idowu Oreoluwa, disclosed to the national daily that he had prepared very hard by attending tutorial classes and ensuring he study privately as he is desirous of wanting to be among the limited number of student that would end up been considered for admission. Bukola King, a candidate sat for the examination the second time, had perfected her timing in order to beat the time that was allowed for answering questions during the UTME Paper Pencil Test. She believed that strategy would contribute in her scoring high points in the test, which would bring her closer to gaining admission in this year UTME.
In a bid to curtail examination malpractice during the 2013 UTME, the Joint Admission and Matriculation Examination, JAMB secured the services of security operatives to man the centres across the country. While media reports suggest that in some centres the security operatives aided the malpractice, 82 candidates in Ogun state were arrested by men of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, for engaging in various form of examination malpractice. Therefore, attentions are been focused on how JAMB, the board saddled with the responsibility for conducting the UTME would respond to the cases of irregularities and shortages of logistics experienced during the PPT mode of the examination, while screening the withheld results of candidates suspected of cheating during the examination.



That would go a long way in ensuring that the pains undergone by candidates who genuinely prepared and sat for the test are rewarded by scoring points that would give them the chance(s) to be among those admitted into the tertiary institutions of their choice. Also, it would assured those who are waiting to take the Computer Based Test of the exams of the UTME from May 18 to June 1, the preparation for logistics in conducting the pilot scheme of this mode of the UTME, which if successful would be the only mode of the examination as from 2015, in replacement of the manual mode of the Paper Pencil Test, known to the 36 years history of JAMB.

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