The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), says it will introduce several technology-driven initiatives ahead of the 2027 unified tertiary matriculation examination (UTME).
The Registrar, JAMB, Segun Aina, speaking in Abuja on Saturday after a five-kilometre walk organised for the board’s staff as part of preparations for the 2027 UTME, said JAMB would introduce a pre-registration application to guide prospective candidates.
“There are a lot of innovations that are coming up. Now we are rolling out what we are calling a pre-registration application,” he said.
“It’s a mobile application that allows you, from the comfort of your own home, to get your details from NIMC, register with your biodata, select your subjects, your courses, your institution.
“During that process, we will be giving some advanced advisory that we didn’t use to give before.
Like now, when you are trying to select a course, you will see an idea of what the entry marks for that course were in the previous year.
“That will guide you. Each of us knows our academic abilities. So, having information like that will guide us on course selection, institution selection and the like.”
According to the JAMB Registrar, the application would also cut down the waiting time for candidates when they are eventually registering for the UTME, including capturing their biometrics.
He added that the board would also introduce an innovation that would prevent candidates from making the wrong choice of course to study during registration.
“There are a lot of innovations. Before now, you could potentially make wrong subject choices for the course you intend to do,” Aina said.
“We are going to make that technically impossible, which means you cannot progress with your application if the subject combination is wrong. And a lot of other innovations are coming.”
He, however, noted that the board would ensure that there are enhanced biometric checks during the actual test itself to check malpractice and all forms of irregularities.
“We have given up some ground and made some concessions to reduce trauma for the candidates in terms of being able to change their bio data and things like that,” he said.
“And in exchange for that, we will be applying enhanced checks at the point of the examination to make sure that we protect the integrity of the system.
For example, we’ve heard on one or two occasions that people feel some questions are faulty. There’s the argument that when a question is a bit too difficult, you automatically think it’s faulty.
“But we will be providing a button during the exam that allows you to report a faulty item.
“And obviously we will take all of that data and use it to interrogate those items and make sure that people are being assessed properly.
“At the end of the exam, you will also be able to rate your CBT centre. Our private sector partners, the CBT centres, have been very supportive since the inception of CBT over 10 years ago.
“And we continue to partner with them whilst holding them to the highest possible standards. So, we will also allow candidates to rate their experience at the centre. There are a few other things that we will still keep in the search for now.”
