JAMB may grant waiver to candidates without SIM card, issues guidelines to centres

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has said that a waiver might be granted to candidates who were yet to acquire a SIM card and want to register for the examinations.

This is coming after it reiterated that the use of a National Identification Number (NIN) is mandatory for the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) and Direct Entry registration.

According to a report from the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), this disclosure on the requirements was made by the Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, on the sidelines of a meeting with Computer Based Test (CBT) centre owners and other stakeholders on Friday in Abuja.

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What the Registrar of JAMB is saying

Oloyede in his statement said, “This year, we are going into full partnership with the National Identification Management Commission (NIMC). Everyone who wants to register with us must have completed their registration with NIMC because this year, all we need is first, your NIN.

Once you send it to 55019, no name required, we continue from there. We will pull your data from NIMC that’s all.

We have approached the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy on that and we are hopeful that we will be granted a waiver for those in that category with conditions.”

He said that any telephone number used by applicants to send the NIN automatically becomes the number for all JAMB transactions with the candidate.

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The registrar, however, cautioned that no JAMB accredited CBT centre or its official would be allowed to be an agent for NIN registration adding that the board would not tolerate any infraction by any centre.

While pointing out that the board would not hesitate to reward centres that had proven to be credible by upgrading them to level `A’ partners, Oloyede charged the stakeholders to ensure strict compliance with rules to avoid being delisted as partners.

He said, “Accredited centres must not collect above N700 for service charge from candidates. No offline registration or by proxy and all candidates with biometric challenges should be referred to the board’s headquarters in Abuja.

You must not put any other SIM card besides the one provided by JAMB into another router in another centre because we would be monitoring. Do not allow parents or guardians into centres and you must not carry out tutorials at any of these centres except if it is pro-bono. We do not want candidates being extorted.

All accredited centres with more than one centre must take note that once one of such centres commits any infraction, it affects all and all the centres will be discontinued.”

He said further that all accredited centres must have a public address system and must fully observe Covid-19 protocols adding that all candidates’ pictures must be taken with white background at the centres during registration or the centres risk being delisted.

He said, “We are giving 20 access codes free of charge to all centres to avoid overcrowding. There must be no transfer of these access codes to another centre or the candidates would be at risk.

We expect every centre to utilise at least 10 of the 20 access codes and if you want more, we can add to it, depending on how many candidates you register in a day.

We will not tolerate any centre opening less than 10 access, except where there are no candidates to register at all.”

The registrar added that candidates must be allowed to preview the details of registration before final submission to give room for corrections.

What you should know

• Recall that JAMB, a few days ago announced the commencement of the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and Direct Entry (DE) registration exercise with registration expected to start on Thursday, April 8, 2021, and end on Saturday, May 15, 2021. The UTME is expected to hold on June 5, 2021, and June 19, 2021.
• The exam body stated that all potential candidates must provide NIN at the point of registration adding that registration has been scheduled to take place in 700 centres across the country.

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