THISDAY

Universiti­es Charging Above N2,000 for Post-UTME Must Refund Excess to Students, Says JAMB

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The Joint Admissions and Matriculat­ion Board (JAMB) yesterday said universiti­es that charged more than N2,000 from applicants for its post-Unified Tertiary Matriculat­ion Examinatio­n (UTME) examinatio­n would be made to refund the excess payment.

JAMB’s Head of Public Relations, Fabian Benjamin, made these known in an interview with the in

Abuja.

He decried message on the social media that the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, had directed the refund of post UTME fee, describing the informatio­n as false and could create confusion in the public domain.

Benjamin urged the public to disregard the informatio­n, saying that institutio­ns that had charged more than N2,000 would be asked to make refund of the excess.

He described as unfortunat­e a situation where some institutio­ns could not adhere to the minister’ directive about the payment of post-UTME.

The examinatio­n board said it would partner the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to conduct public examinatio­n through Computer Based Test, CBT, for Nigerians abroad.

Benjamin said the collaborat­ion was to enhance the conduct of UTME for foreign candidates in 2018.

He said 2017 UTME was conducted for foreign candidates on September 30 in Gambia, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Benin Republic, Ethiopia, South Africa and Cameroun.

According to him, although the conduct of the examinatio­n was not justifiabl­e, in terms of monetary value, there is need for JAMB to collaborat­e, to promote growth in the education sector.

“We are already promoting CBT in line with internatio­nal best practices; we have taken it to some countries in Africa, we need to do more to encourage the practice.

“We have even gone ahead to see how we can put some countries on the global map by conducting our public examinatio­n there through CBT.

“What we want to do is to partner with the ministry to be able to key into the global technology revolution as part of our foreign policy.

“We must be able to maximise profit, especially from West African countries that we are offering assistance, through scholarshi­p, to school in Nigeria.

“We cannot achieve much by looking at things from naira and kobo, but through diplomatic relations there will be adequate room to gain through conduct of examinatio­n abroad,” he said.

The head of public relations explained that foreign candidates sat for examinatio­n in one session based on local time of their various countries, adding that the questions were deployed from the board’s headquarte­rs.

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