By Veronica Dariya

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says only Computer Based Centres that were 100 per cent prepared will be used for its 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

The board disclosed this in its Weekly Bulletin of the Office of the Registrar, made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja.

JAMB said as part of its preparations for the 2022 UTME, it had concluded all arrangements to validate and accredit centres to be used for the exercise.

It further explained that the development followed the outcome of its virtual meetings with its Chief Technical Advisers, Zonal Directors, State Coordinators and Technical Officers for the accreditation of the Board’s examination centres.

The Registrar of the board, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, was quoted as saying that “the validation exercise is necessary to assess the conduct of the 2021 UTME and to look at those areas requiring improvement.

“The exercise, which would commence immediately after the modalities are defined, is to ensure, among other things that only centres that are 100 per cent ready would be used for the UTME.

“This is in addition to giving other new ones with the opportunity to showcase their capacity and be included, if found suitable, while ensuring that any centre that is lacking in terms of technical and infrastructural specifications is excluded from the exercise.”

He also urged the various stakeholders engaged in the exercise to ensure that all the rules guiding the validation of centres were followed without any form of sentiments or compromise.

Oloyede said that the validation exercise was aimed at laying a good foundation, devoid of shoddy practices with the goal of yielding a successful and hitch-free examination.

According to him, centre validation, when efficiently executed, determines the outcome for the year’s examination.

He also charged the officers to give the task at hand their utmost attention knowing fully well that the integrity and the image of the board were at stake.

The board’s Director, Information Technology Services (ITS), Mr Fabian Okoro, was also quoted as saying that “there would be six centres across the six geopolitical zones which would be used to test run the new-age technology JAMB was hoping to deploy.

He said that JAMB’s Chief Technical Advisers were mandated to ensure that thorough checks on the CCTV installations and other security devices of the various centres were carried out.

“If centres are not adequately covered, centre owners must make provisions to install more cameras as remote monitoring of the examination is non-negotiable.”

Okoro said that all the computer systems must be on a Local Area Network, adding that no wireless network would be acceptable by the board.

Other guidelines, he added, included the need for all centres to be well-fenced and not in a shared location with any other business outfit, provision of adequate backup systems, active power supply should be up and active and functional air conditioners.

(NAN)