1.6 million candidates have registered for the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, announced this yesterday in Abuja while monitoring the registration of applicants at the Global Distance Learning in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Oloyede was joined in the monitoring exercise by the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, David Adajo.
JAMB started the sale of the 2023 UTME form on Saturday, January 14, 2023, and was expected to close on Tuesday, February 14, 2023, but was extended allowing more candidates to register.
Adajo explained that the extension was necessary to ensure all the candidates have time to register.
Oloyede said: “So far, we have registered 1.6 million that is, one million, six hundred thousand) candidates.”
He said the board had apprehended about 15 people who went against the conduct of the UTME registration processes.
He said;
“Ordinarily, registration for UTME has closed. But to take care of people that could, for one reason or another not be able to make the deadline of February 14, especially as you know, most of the registration processes depend on banks and we could not have top-level bank operations from the past three weeks for understandable reasons.
“Here, the turnout is very low because the first set of registration that ended on February 14 had virtually captured more than 98 percent of people. So, the people that are being captured now are those that are left over.
“Today, for instance, we only met three people. We asked the head of this centre how many were registered on Saturday and he said about 15. So, I think the monitoring gave us the confidence that, yes, it was a good idea to extend. So, we don’t leave anybody out of the box”, he said.
