Confusion, as server failure mars commencement of UTME (JAMB) exams

This is a bit shocking. Please read.

The postponed 2015 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, billed to commence yesterday, nationwide, was again marred by some hiccups over the failure of internet servers as well as failure of the biometric machines to capture candidates’ thumb-prints and other data at some centres.

Another controversy which emerged was the complaints raised by candidates who registered for the UTME in Lagos State, but were posted to neighbouring states of Osun, Ogun and Kwara to write the examinations.

This development was as a result of shortage of Computer-Based Test, CBT centres in Lagos State to cater for the huge number of candidates billed to write the exams.

According to the Public Relations Officer of Joint Admission Matriculation Board, JAMB, Mr. Benjamin Fabian, Over 1.4 million candidates will be writing this year’s UTME across 400 CBT centres nationwide.

According to reports from the University of Nigeria, UNN, Nsukka, Enugu State, where the UMTE was held at the Department of Economics, the first batch of candidates who were expected to start the examinations did not start until at about 3.30 pm due to lack of access to the internet.

Thousands of candidates who travelled from different areas to the centre waited endlessly. JAMB officials who were on hand asked candidates for batch two who were to write their own from 10 am to wait so that they would not come back on Friday for the CBT.

It was however, a success story at Oko Polytechnic, Oko, Anambra State, where the institution had earlier established a CBT centre with about 2000 computers. The initial problems of lack of internet servers were rectified by some JAMB officials before the first batch started. About 24,000 candidates would write the examination in the school during the 10 days that the test would last.

This year’s UTME was initially slated to commence on Monday, March 9, but following some logistics problems, the Joint Admission Matriculation Board, JAMB, shifted the examination till yesterday.

However, despite the shift in date, which JAMB said was to allow it put its house in order,the exams were marred by many problems in different examination centres across the country.

At the Island Computer College, XYZ Plaza, centre in the Ajah area of Lagos, candidates who showed up at the centre as early as 7.00am, could not begin their exams, as the College was said to be fixing its internet server which encountered technical problems.

The delay led to agitation by the candidates and their parents who had accompanied them to the centre. Save for the timely intervention of some police men and JAMB officials, the centre would have been thrown into confusion.

Similarly, at Chams City in Ikeja, the examination for the first batch billed to commence by 8am could not start until around 9am. Efforts by Vanguard to speak with exam officials proved abortive as none was ready to speak to the press over the issue.

This delay, it was observed forced hundreds of candidates for the second session to loiter around the Isaac John Street, where the centre is located.

At the University of Lagos, UNILAG, Akoka, there were about four candidates whose thumbprint did not match with what the exam body had on its database.

However, since other data provided by them during registration for the exams were correct, supervisors at the centre allowed them to be screened based on the exemption mode. This was even as three of the four visually impaired candidates expected to participate in the examination yesterday, showed up. 

Vanguard