Reports claiming that the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) raised the registration cost for its Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) have been denied.
Dr. Fabian Benjamin, the Public Communication Advisor for JAMB, stated that the low board examination fee was set to prevent candidates from being overloaded, explaining that the UTME still costs N3,500.
“The attention of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has been drawn to several publications in recent times insinuating that the board has increased its examination registration fee.
“This is far from the truth as the cost of obtaining the board’s UTME application documents remains N3,500, which has been the cost of its application documents since it was brought down from N5,000 in 2018.
“Therefore, the board wishes to state that the cost of the application document price has not been increased in spite of the prevailing economic reality in the country which has also affected the cost of the board’s operations,” he said.
Therefore, Benjamin said, the board wants to reassure the public that it has been taking all reasonable steps to guarantee that candidates are not burdened in any manner.
“One of these measures is to deliberately keep cost low, hence its decision to make available its Use of English reading text free of charge through a QR code to ensure that the increase in cost of production is not passed to candidates.
“Therefore, all UTME candidates would access the reading text free of charge through multiple channels, which include their profiles, e-mail addresses, notification slips and the board’s website,” he stressed.
He clarified, though, that what some were seeing as a fee increase was actually the result of its cashless policy, which combined all application fees with the fees that candidates had to pay to Computer-based Test (CBT) facilities.JAMB stated that this was done to stop dishonest centre owners from exploitation of its candidates.
“These fees are in turn remitted to partnering centres on a weekly basis. For instance, candidates are expected to pay N700 for registration, N1500 as examination fees and N1500 for the optional Mock-UTME at privately – owned centres.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the 2024 UTME/DE e-PIN remains N3500. The registration fee of N700, which is to be paid to CBT centres by candidates, is now to be collected by the board along with N1500.
“This is the cost for sitting the main UTME, and N1500 as the cost of the optional Mock-UTME etc. is to be collected by the board on behalf of the CBT centres,” the board stressed.