FOLLOWING the close of registration for the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, today Friday, May 5, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has raked in N8.5bn from the sale of forms. NAIJ.com gathered that an unprecedented number of 1.7 million candidates registered for the examination.
Fabian Benjamin, JAMB head of information, who said that the number of registered candidates have “never been recorded in the history of the board’’noted that JAMB had put in place adequate facilities to accommodate the upsurge in the number of candidates Benjamin, who spoke in a telephone interview with The Punch on Thursday, May 4, noted that the board would conduct the 2017 UTME on April 13. He said: “In 2016, about 1.2million candidates wrote the examination.
It was the same in 2015 and that was why we projected for 1.5milion candidates this year. This year, registration period was reduced from six months to one month. But, despite the short registration period and capturing of 10 fingers, we have recorded 1.7million candidates. This
shows the effectiveness of our processes. It also shows that whenever you have a setback you should not step back. “We have put everything in place to ensure the success of the examination. We have the capacity to accommodate 1.7million candidates. In 2016, we used 510 computer- based centres, including six
foreign centres for 1.2million candidates. This year, we are making use of 633 centres. There is an increase of more than 100 centres to take care of the additional candidates. Benjamin also noted that less than 10% of registered candidates sat for the mock examination which held on Saturday
