JAMB orders arrest of parents found near CBT centres during the UTME

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has issued an order to arrest any parent found near any of the Computer-Based Test facilities during the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.

The board’s spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin, made this announcement in Abuja on Thursday. The board stated that the directive became necessary as a result of some parents’ intrusive behaviour during prior board examinations.

Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, JAMB Registrar, stated that any parent who defied the order would not only be arrested, but his or her child would also be disqualified from taking the examination.

He said, “The measure is necessary as it had been discovered over time that many of these intruding parents are facilitators of examination infractions while others have, by their actions, disrupted the board’s examinations in the past.’’

He added that some miscreants also disguised themselves as parents to infiltrate the centres to perpetrate all forms of infractions.

The registrar urged security operatives to work with the centres to apprehend any meddlesome parent near the centres. He said that going by the extant national policy on education, a candidate for the examination must have attained the age of 17 years.

“Therefore, it is evident that these parents had not allowed their wards to pass through the classes as defined in the document, hence, the determination to follow their wards to the examination venue with the aim of compromising examination officials.

“At any rate, it is clear to any discerning observer that these parents deserve to be sanctioned as they had obviously ‘smuggled’ underage children into the ranks of those scheduled to sit the examination.

“The board also availed itself of the opportunity provided by the meeting to advise candidates to jealously guard their personal details, e-mail address, as well as their registration and phone numbers. This advice is issued against the backdrop of some candidates, who might be enticed into patronising any of those fraudulent websites out there,” he said.

He also informed candidates that if their personal details were found with any of such sites, they would be treated as accomplices and prosecuted.

Mr Oloyede further said that arrangements had been concluded for the conduct of the 2024 UTME which would be held in over 700 CBT centres across the nation. He disclosed that the board expected a seamless exercise as it had made adequate provision to tackle any technical glitch that might occur in the course of the examination.

He, however, warned that if a session experienced any technical challenge, candidates in subsequent sessions would be allowed to sit their examination as scheduled.

He added that candidates in the challenged session would be rescheduled for the last session for the day or the following day or even further depending on the centre schedules.

“Candidates are to take note of this so that they will remain calm in the event of any disruption. In this way, any candidate or parent, who disrupts any subsequent session on account of the failure of his/her session, would be disqualified outright from taking the examination,” he added.

Mr Oloyede appealed to centre owners to consider the assignment as a national engagement and not as a purely profit venture, urging them to expose the bad eggs among them.

The registrar recalled that CBT centres were allowed to register Direct Entry candidates, adding that the practice was discontinued owing to the predilection of some of them to engage in fraudulent acts.

He said this was in spite of the many opportunities that the board had created for them, especially by ensuring that other agencies patronise them.

He, therefore, enjoined centre owners to eschew unwholesome acts or risk losing vital opportunities. He expressed shock that intelligence showed how the CBT centres had been making efforts to compromise the board’s staff especially with the offer of accommodation.

He asked why they would want to do that when they constantly complain that what was paid them was not enough.

He said the centres should not hesitate to expose any official who asks for such favours as the board had sufficiently paid its officials for the exercise in line with government regulations, adding that any centre which persists in doing so might have something to hide.

The registrar informed the participants that the board deployed state-of-the-art technologies to check all manners of infractions, collaborations and other unsavoury acts that were at variance with its code of operations.