The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has set out new guidelines for the conduct of the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
This is contained in its Weekly Bulletin in Abuja.
The board said the development was released in a communiqué issued at the end of a five-day brainstorming retreat for management staff held from Sept. 19 to Sept. 23 in Abuja.
It explains that the modifications included new ways to further strengthen the conduct of the UTME accreditation centres, registration of candidates, examination process, results management and general administration.
According JAMB, all Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres must henceforth use laptops running on at least 2 gigabytes (2GB) RAM for the conduct of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) tests.
The board also barred CBT centres from collaborating with cyber cafes or tutorial centres, saying “any violation of the directive, whether in part or whole, would lead to the revocation of the licence of the erring CBT centre.”
“It became necessary for the board to modify its operations towards achieving far-reaching improvements on various issues emanating from the registration process and biometric challenges, among other operational procedures.
“Hence, no new Computer-Based Test (CBT) centre would be accredited without meeting the new requirements.
“To this end, new CBT centres must use laptop computer systems as clients, zero thin-dients or Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) would no longer be accepted.”
JAMB also announced that it would consider separating UTME registration from that of Direct Entry (DE) beginning from 2023.
JAMB Registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, also stated that biometrics of all accredited CBT centre registration officers would be captured ahead of the exercise.
JAMB said candidates must use at least two fingers to print their registration slip.
“Any of the two fingers taken would be used for biometric verification prior to entering the examination hall on the day of the examination,” it said.
