The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has described as “misleading” reports in The Nation and some Newspapers that it had dumped the Computer-Based Test (CBT) mode in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The organisation has therefore restated its determination to continue all its examinations using CBT mode.
A statement issued in Abuja on Thursday by the spokesperson of JAMB, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, said the clarification became necessary “following the misleading caption in the front page of Nation of Thursday March 30 2017. with the headline: “JAMB dumps CBT, adopts eight keys.”
He said, “The headline was not only misleading but capable of causing panic, distortion and confusion in the minds of Nigerians particularly the candidates planning to take the UTME of a well-conceived CBT examination which the Board was consolidating on the gains and feat recorded.
“This report was mischievous because more than 10 other journalists were there at the retreat where the Eight keys intended to make the navigation of the examination easy and friendly for first time user of computer or any electronic device was restated.
“The serial misleading captions of the Baord activities by Nation even when their reporters are at such functions send accurate report to their headquarters is a clear demonstration of an orchestrated attempt to pull the Board down and berates her desire to improve the fortunes of the education sector as it concern public examination.
“In our attempt to make CBT friendly, JAMB introduced the use of 8 keys without a mouse. This we have explained to Nigerians and all stakeholders at the just-concluded strategic planning Retreat on “Supervision and Evaluation of the conduct of the 2017 UTME in Kaduna, where we had the privilege of having over a 100 distinguished scholars from the academia, civil society and other critical stakeholders.
“At the meeting the JAMB Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, restated the determination of JAMB to continue to innovate on policies that will ease the phobia for CBT, one of which is the introduction of the use of 8 keys without a mouse.
“A reporter from The Nation Newspapers in Kaduna, Abdulgafar Alabelewe, was in attendance and nowhere was the issue of dumping CBT contemplated. We see this embarrassing caption as deliberate effort to thwart the Board’s noble intention. The question we are asking is on what platform will the 8 keys be?
“In view of this, we call on all Nigerians to disregard this misleading report and to appeal to The Nation Newspapers to desist from this inglorious attitude of allowing its beautiful medium to be used for the subversion of developmental stride of JAMB.”
