The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, on Friday said it has applied for a waiver from the Federal Government to allow applicants for this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination and Direct Entry examination to obtain new Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card for registration.
The examination body noted that candidates must make use of accessible SIM cards which has never been used for UTME/DE registration.
Registrar of JAMB, Prof Is-haq Oloyede disclosed this in Abuja on Friday during a virtual meeting with owners of Computer Based Test Centres, service providers and other stakeholders to kickstart the 2021 UTME/DE registration.
Registration for the examinations will commence next month.
The registrar said talks are ongoing with the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami to grant a conditioned waiver to an estimated 20 percent of candidates without a sim card.
Prof Oloyede said: “We have told the National Communication Commission (NCC), approached the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy and we are hopeful that we will be granted waiver with of course, conditionalities which we must ensure the candidates meet.
“Not all the candidates are without sim, 80 percent of the candidates already have their number, we are talking of the 20 percent and if we are fortunate enough to secure the waiver of the minister through the NCC, we will go ahead to make sure there is full compliance to the conditionalities because it is in our interest as a nation that those things that are put in place should be allowed to protect all of us.”
The registrar said the board introduced the use of National Identity Number (NIN) for UTME registration to checkmate examination malpractices.
JAMB’s Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, who said this, disclosed that the use of NIN as a prerequisite for registration was from the Minister of Education.
According to him, the idea was also for security reasons.
