Why JAMB may not reduce 2018 UTME fee

The Registrar of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Is-haq Oloyede, says the board may not review downward the fee for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in 2018.

Mr. Oloyede, a professor, told newsmen on Thursday in Ilorin that the board had initially thought of reducing the fee for UTME in 2018.

The JAMB registrar, who decried the unwholesome activities of some parents during the 2017 UTME, said reduction in fee was no longer attractive.

He said many people were arrested during the last UTME for allegedly collecting money from parents who were presumed to be poor.

He said, “It (reduction in fee) is one of the options, but what’s mitigating against it, why I’m not convinced and I don’t think the board too is convinced, is that are the so-called poor people genuinely poor?

“Our findings reveal that what people spend on corruption in the society to solicit for what was not lost is alarming.

“What parents pay for seeking unholy support and what parents are prepared to pay looking for how to cut corners show that if actually they are poor, they will not be able to secure the resources they are wasting,” he said.

On the controversy trailing the huge amount returned to the Federal Government coffers by JAMB this year, Mr. Oloyede said the board had not been wasteful and whatever comes in would be appropriately remitted.

He promised that the board would be strengthened to make it self-sustaining as obtainable across the world.

“I am not aware of any agency that is in the nature of JAMB in the world and is being funded by government.

“But in Nigeria, because we are used to something that is not proper, to get us out of what is improper will even be strange,” Mr. Oloyede said.

Mr. Oloyede, who promised that the board would improve on its activities in the coming years, called on all stakeholders in the education sector to be honest in the discharge of their responsibilities.

(NAN)