947,000 sit for UTME in 2 days – JAMB

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) said 947,000 candidates sat for the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in the last two days.

The Head, Public Affairs and Protocol of JAMB, Dr Fabian Benjamin, said this after monitoring the ongoing UTME alongside the Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede and others in Abuja on Thursday.

Fabian assured that every candidate who registered for the exam would be given the opportunity to take part in the exercise, saying the board had resolved the technical hitches experienced on the first day of the UTME in some centres.

”This is the best exam we have had over a period of time, but I know many will like to contest that because of what happened on Tuesday.

”I know if you have been in the system and following our exams, you will know that the first day is always turbulent, then as we progress, we stabilise and continue the exercise.

“And one assurance we want to give Nigerians, is that every candidate that has registered for this examination will certainly be given the opportunity to take the examination.

” On the first day, there were candidates who were unable to sit for the examination because of technical issues and we have rescheduled those candidates; some of them are taking the exam as we speak and some will also take tomorrow,” he said.

He urged candidates who could not sit for the examination on the first day to continue to check their profile and print their slips as the examination had been rescheduled.

Asked about when the results of the examination would be released, Dr Fabian said the management would announce the results soon.

” We are looking at the results and by the grace of God, we will release the first batch of the results soon,” he said.

“In the last two days, excluding today, we have examined 947, 000 candidates. Out of the 947,000 candidates we had issues with about 60,000 candidates and these candidates are being rescheduled.

” If you are to give a pass mark, out of 900,000, you had issue with 60,000, it is a fair share.

”But that is not to say even if it is one candidate that is unable to sit for the exam we are not concerned,” he added.

It would be recalled that 1.6 million candidates registered for the 2023 UTME which commenced on Tuesday and is expected to end on May 3. 

[NAN]