After posing as a candidate in the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination on Facebook, DEBORAH TOLU-KOLAWOLE was approached by a syndicate of the UTME and West African Senior School Certificate Examination result manipulators who extort desperate candidates for ‘result upgrade’
In Nigeria, scoring what is considered a low mark in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination or the West African Senior School Certificate Examination could indicate the end of one’s academic dreams. This is due to the desperation for admission into tertiary institutions, most especially, universities, to study choice courses such as medicine, law, engineering, and others.
In 2018, an 18-year-old student simply identified as Loveth reportedly committed suicide over her inability to reach the cut-off mark in the 2018 UTME. Loveth was said to have scored 163 which made her take her life. Though the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board for a while now has stopped imposing cut-off marks on institutions, the desperation for obtaining high scores to beat cut-off marks for choice courses such as medicine, and law has continued to put the candidates, teachers, and even parents on edge.
JAMB during its 2023 policy meeting held on June 24, 2023 announced that a total of 452,443 candidates during the 2023 UTME indicated interest in the 78,578 admission quotas for medicine. With a high number of candidates jostling for limited admission quotas, this means that admission lists would be streamlined to accommodate the best of the best.
For a candidate to qualify, he would have to present certain qualifications which may include but are not limited to a favourable UTME score, depending on the cut-off mark announced by the university of choice, favourable grades in WASSCE, favourable post-UTME score among others.
In a bid to obtain favourable scores for admissions or in some cases recognition, candidates, teachers, schools, parents and guardians alike have devised multiple ways of beating the system through various forms of examination malpractices. Schools and private individuals have been known for arranging “special or miracle centres” where candidates are given answers to examination questions with little or no interference from external supervisors. In June 2023, the West African Examination Council accused some unnamed supervisors of making billions of naira from examination malpractices.
In the case of UTME, impersonators have been reported to have known to register on behalf of candidates with the intent of writing the examinations on behalf of the original candidates.
The JAMB Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, in February 2023 noted that the board cancelled UTME registrations of 817 candidates over impersonation.
Though the board has been able to curtail the number of impersonators who write UTME on behalf of others through the introduction of a new verification system, the board is currently facing a different dimension to the problem. On July 2, 2023, the board exposed a certain Ejikeme Mmesoma who paraded herself as the 2023 UTME top scorer. Ejikeme had presented a fake UTME result with 362 points. She had a result slip and even a “text message’’ from JAMB to back up her claims. She was, however, exposed when the Anambra State Government decided to verify her claims from the board.
The board also exposed a certain Atung Gerald who claimed to have scored 380 in the 2023 UTME. Following Atung’s revelation, his kinsmen wrote to JAMB demanding national recognition only for the JAMB portal to reveal that Atung did not register nor did he sit for the 2023 UTME.
-Punch
