The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has resumed the 2023 Direct Entry (DE) registration exercise.
Registrar of JAMB, Professor Is-haq Oloyede, who stated this at a briefing on Monday in Abuja, said the DE registration would come to a close on 28th April, 2023.
He said there were high level of forgery of A Level certificates used for the registration, and as such the Board has introduced new guidelines to checkmate such act.
He said, “The Board commenced the 2023 Direct Entry registration on Monday, 20th February, 2023, but had to immediately suspend it following the discovery of the plethora of devices and machinations to circumvent and compromise the standard of A ‘level qualifications required from DE candidates.”
Prof Oloyede noted that recent joint operations of the Federal Ministry of Education and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on DE qualifications brought to light some of these unsavoury and nefarious activities.
“Bayero University, Kano (BUK) has also consistently brought to the fore the high rate of forgery of A’Level qualifications for DE. For instance, it was discovered that in previous years, some candidates used unacceptable and forged A’level certificates/qualifications to register for Direct Entry and eventually got admitted.
“For example, out of 148 candidates verified by BUK, only 6 were found to be genuine. By implication 142 of the results were forged,” he said.
According to him, the Board, concerned stakeholders and institutions are working assiduously to detect such and the ones already found, are being dealt with according to the provisions of the law.
He said to further checkmate the anomaly and to also prevent recurrence of such irregularity, the Board has decided that the 2023 DE registrations will not only be restricted to JAMB Professional Test Centres (PTCs) but will also be done under strict supervision.
“The Board has provided additional guidelines to all DE registration outlets (JAMB-owned centres), officers of the Board and candidates on the 2023 Direct Entry registration exercise,” he said.
He said at the point of registration, all candidates must fill in registration/matriculation number of the previous school attended where the qualification was obtained; subject(s) of qualification; awarding institution and institution attended.
Speaking further, Oloyede said the Board would only accept 13 qualifications/certificates for the 2023 Direct Entry registration exercise, which include first degree, university diploma,
Higher National Diploma (HND), Ordinary National Diploma /National Diploma (OND/ND) and Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE).
Others are Interim Joint Matriculation Board (IJMB) A’ Level, Joint Universities Preliminary Examination Board (JUPEB) A’ Level, NABTEB Advanced National Business Certificate (ANBC), NABTEB Advanced National Technical Certificate (ANTC), NABTEB GCE-A’ Level (2015 – 2021), Higher Islamic Studies Certificate (HIS) by NBAIS, International Baccalaureate (IBN) and the National Registered Nurse /National Registered Midwife (NRN/NRM). ”
He, however, said that the 127 candidates who had earlier registered for the 2023 DE before the exercise was suspended, would be requested to return to the registration centres to update their application.
The JAMB boss also revealed that the Data Bank put in place to address challenges associated with the A ’level qualifications has now be renamed “Nigeria Post-secondary Education Data System (NIPEDS)”.
On the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), Oloyede said JAMB has introduced new measures in the conduct of the exam and called for understanding.
“The Board has instituted some measures which are to be deployed during the 2023 UTME exercise. Despite the fact that the innovations have been tested and certified, yet it is not unlikely that some hiccups might spring up when the new technology is deployed live and nationwide. We therefore solicit your support and understanding as we promptly address any unforeseen circumstances,” he said.
