Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB Scraps Mop-up UTME, Insists on no Biometrics, no Examinations

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has announced that it will no longer conduct mop-up examinations for UTME candidates who are not biometrically validated.

The board announced this in its weekly bulletin of the Office of the Registrar in Abuja yesterday.

The move was made to tighten the noose around examination malpractice, according to the statement: “The board has decided that the era in which some candidates will present themselves at the examination venue and claim difficulty in being biometrically verified and expect the system to allow them to sit for the examination is gone for good.”

“It will be remembered that the board, in its generosity, let such candidates to be rescheduled for the mop-up UTME launched in 2017.” However, after examining the process and its impact on the entire examination value chain, the board recently realised the futility of such a structure.

“As a result, the board’s management has sadly concluded that all candidates must be verified in order to sit for their test, as there will be no more mop-up UTMEs for whatever reason.”

“In order to accommodate the few who may have true cases of inability to be captured, such applicants must clearly state such difficulties at the time of registration.”

“This is so that they can be allocated to a centre inside the board’s National headquarters for strict monitoring.”

The bulletin stated that the step was implemented not only to clean up the examination process, but also to protect the board’s hard-earned reputation.

JAMB stated that the decision resulted from a careful analysis of the 2022 UTME process by management, with the need to fix all vulnerabilities discovered during the examination.

“Examination malpractice has remained one of the biggest challenges confronting all public examination bodies worldwide, necessitating the necessity for it to take regular actions to tackle the beast.”

“No UTME candidate will be allowed to sit for the exam unless they have been biometrically validated.” At the time of registration, all ten fingers of the candidate must be photographed.

“To address the threat of examination misconduct, the board has made full use of technology, including biometric capture of a candidate’s ten fingers upon UTME registration.”

“This is to guarantee that the fingerprints taken and those given by the candidate at the examination venue match,” it stated.

The board stated that any scenario different than the ones listed above was an invitation to investigate a security violation.