N7. 8b Remittance To FG: JAMB Registrar Justifies Board’s Position

By Steve Oni, Ilorin
The Registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Ishaq Oloyede has said that most of first class graduates from the nation’s universities were not exceptional but merely average at their Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) scores.
Oloyede disclosed this over the weekend at an interactive session with journalists in Ilorin, the Kwara state capital, explaining what the JAMB cut-off mark stands for as against the misconception about it.
He also hinted that remittance to the government covers by the board in 2017 has increased from about N5billlion to N7.8billion at the end of 2017.
The JAMB’s Registrar explained that statistic of first class graduates across the nation’s universities the Board took showed that about 80 percent of the graduates scored below 200 in the UTME that they wrote for admission to the university.
He said cut-off mark which the board put at 120 for 2017/2018 admission did not mean a score for automatic admission but a benchmark for admission of candidates
Oloyede who defended the current cut-off mark noted there had been instances where candidates with poorer scores were dropped to less competitive courses but later crossed to the more competitive ones and emerged best, at their graduation, in those courses.
He disclosed that some affiliated institutions were urging reduction of cut-off marks adopted by their parent universities.
Oloyede, who said the affiliates had approached minister of education to ask JAMB to prevail on the universities to reduce the cut-off marks, stated that the affiliates were complaining that they find it difficult to get candidates to admit with the cut-off marks.
The JAMB Registrar explained that the board generated N12billion in 2017 as income and, after deducting its expenses had N7.8billion left which it remitted to the coffers of the government.
He said the board was able to remit such money to the treasury because it blocked loopholes and checked wastages.
Oloyede said though JAMB is not a money generating establishment it is not also a money wasting one to the extent that it would condone unnecessary spending.
He said the board had also devised means to check unscrupulous activities of candidates who do multiple registrations by deliberately writing their names wrongly with the intention to claim the result of the one with the highest score and thereafter demand correction of the name claiming that the fault is not theirs.
The Registrar said that, that practice of multiple registration earned JAMB more money but it was checked because the board was not after money but its integrity and that of the nation.
He said that another technological means was devised to check cyber cafe operators from exploiting candidates who register for the UTME in their cafes while the Central Admission Processing System (CAPS) was introduced to ease processes of admission of qualified candidates.
Oloyede who disclosed that 1.7million candidates sat for the last UTME in addition with 200 of direct candidates said the board expected a total number of 2million to sit for the examination this year.