The Registrar/Chief Executive of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Prof. Dibu, Ojerinde, has said 15 employees of the agency are currently under investigation for allegedly compromising standard in the accreditation of examination centres that defrauded JAMB on the availability of adequate infrastructure.
Ojerinde said this during the visit of the House of Representatives Committee to the JAMB head office in Abuja on Wednesday.
The alleged compromise, Ojerinde said, led to technical problems encountered during the conduct of the 2016 UTME.
“A committee has been set up to investigate the role of some of our staff, about 15 of them, who conducted accreditation for some centers and if they are found guilty, they risk jail terms,” he said.
Also, the House of Representatives’ members made a U-turn and certified the computer-based test for the conduct of Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination into tertiary institutions across the country.
The decision came barely one week after it said that the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board should revert to the paper-pencil test in the conduct of UTME.
The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Basic Education, Mr. Zakari Mohammed, stated this during a fact-finding mission to JAMB Headquarters, where they also supervised the rescheduled examinations in Abuja.
The JAMB employees under probe were said to have refused to conduct proper due diligence about the centres – a development that was responsible for complaints from the centres, including light and computer failure.
According to Mohammed, Nigeria cannot afford to return to PPT. He said that contrary to insinuations, the House of Representative never took a position on the CBT.
He said, “Basically, we need to be educated more. We are in support of the CBT and we cannot go back to paper-pencil; we must be in tandem with the world in the conduct of our examinations.
“The House (of Representatives) did not take any position on CBT, but there were fractions on the floor as to the adoption of both methods and I believe it is the reason why the House Committee on Basic Education was mandated to investigate. Nigeria cannot afford to maintain double standard as we know other African countries such as Uganda have been to our country to replicate our system such as the CBT.”
The PUNCH reported that Ojerinde had earlier promised that candidates who missed the 2016 UTME due to their relocation would be given equal opportunity to take the rescheduled examination on Wednesday.
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