JAMB advises parents to stay away from its exam centres

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has advised parents to stay away from its examination centres during the conduct of this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

JAMB registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede explained that some parents may connive with examination officials to cheat during the UTME.

He said this after monitoring the conduct of the board’s mock examination at its CBT centre in Kogo and Veritas University, on Monday, in Abuja.

The registrar said about 211,000 candidates wrote the mock in some select computer based test centres.

Oloyede said: “We urge the parents to keep away. You can see around here there are parents and I ask myself don’t they have some other things to do? We are not in a Kindgertaen School, you are preparing people for university education. And the parents come too much around, they want their children, their wards to pass at all cost.

“It is not helpful; because these candidates will you follow them to the classroom? Lecturers and others will start taking undue advantage of them because they are not matured; they are not prepared for the task. I think parents should stay clear and allow the children to grow.”

The registrar also advised candidates against cheating during the examination, stressing that the board would monitor the system of every candidate to make sure they do not cheat

He added that all electronic devices like phones, wristwatches, calculators and special eye glasses, biros, and others remained banned from the examination hall.

The prohibition of the above listed materials and other rules, he explained, are applicable to not only the candidates but to the supervisors and examiners.

“We urge the students to desist from any form of malpractices or short cuts to pass the examination.

“You are aware that we have banned some items from going into the examination hall, special glasses, wristwatches and many other things that we are aware our candidates are using to do some illicit activities.

“As many of the candidates are getting cleverer, the board is getting wiser. We have done everything possible to avoid the issue of log out. When a student sees that the questions are difficult, he plays some pranks, remove some wires, pull out the cable, then there is problem. We are monitoring every system now and when we discover that it is at your instance. You will carry your cross,” he said.