The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on Friday said the commencement of the 2021 unified tertiary matriculation examination (UTME) is still shrouded in uncertainty.
JAMB registrar Ishaq Oloyede made this statement while explaining that the uncertainty surrounding the commencement of the examination as scheduled is a result of difficulties faced by candidates in registering for their National Identification Number (NIN), a mandatory requirement for registration.
The JAMB boss stated: “While the mock examination will go on as scheduled, we cannot say the same of the main examination,” Oloyede said at a virtual press conference with stakeholders on Friday.
“This is primarily because of NIN. We have more than 600,000 candidates who have indicated an interest in our examination but are yet to receive their details.”
JAMB had set May 15 as the deadline for the registration, but only a little over one million candidates have so far registered for the UTME and about 30,000 candidates for Direct Entry.
This figure is low when compared to about 1.9 million UTME and 200,000 DE candidates captured last year.
Investigation revealed that as of Wednesday, May 12, about 600,000 prospective candidates, who have initiated the registration process, are yet to receive the required codes to be sent to their mobile lines by the network operators.
It would be recalled that Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on Wednesday, March 24, had announced that it has started the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and Direct Entry (DE) registration.
Head of Public Affairs and Protocol, Dr. Fabian Benjamin stated that NIN is mandatory for participation in the 2021 registration exercise, while also announcing that UTME will hold from Saturday, June 5 to Saturday, June 19, 2021.
