Candidates for the 2017 Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, examination that began yesterday poured out their frustration over what they described as poor preparation by JAMB as most centres visited started late and had network failure among other issues.
Sunday Vanguard reporters who visited some centres in Lagos observed that aside the delay that characterised the start up in some centres, two hours behind schedule , candidates had to contend with breakdown of server while writing the exam.
One of the several candidates who spoke to our correspondent in Yaba College of Technology center was Busayo Akinyemi who came from Mushin to write the examination.
Akinyemi said she felt sad that JAMB could not live up to its promise. Her words, “ I was here before 6:30 am because I was among the first batch to write by 7am. However, the exam did not start until 11:30. This was after we had shouted at JAMB officials who were still bringing computers into the hall as at 9am”.
The same scenario was witnessed at Career Centre, Iwaya at Sabo/ Bariga area of Lagos where candidates slated to begin the exam at 1:30 pm stood under the sun as at 1pm, even as those who had already written theirs came out of the hall with complaints that only one engineer was on ground to battle the issue of system breakdown or network failure.
JAMB’s reaction
One of the JAMB officials approached told our reporter that hitches were expected but promised that by next Saturday all the issues raised would have been addressed.
“ Today, we expected little challenges; that’s why only two sets were writing. By next week, all the hitches would have been settled and we will have three sets writing. These include the first batch of 7am, second batch, 11 am and the last one that will be by 1:30 pm. Today, only two batches wrote the exam”.
Asked how many candidates were inside the examination hall, he replied: “Why are you concerned about the number of candidates? For the delay, it is normal because today is the beginning of JAMB. “
For candidates who claimed JAMB posted them to far away states, JAMB spokesperson, Dr Fabian Benjamin, while speaking with Sunday Vanguard, said every candidate chose the town of examination, while JAMB chose the examination centre. “JAMB did not choose examination centre for any candidate, each candidate made the choice. What we did was to choose the examination centre,” he explained.
However, Sunday Vanguard findings revealed that candidates, who got posted to far distance either registered late or had the centres they initially wanted full.