The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has promised to look into the issue concerning candidates who were unable to be verified through the biometric process at the beginning or end of the 2019/20 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) exercise which commenced on Thursday.
JAMB Head of Media and Publicity, Dr Fabian Benjamin, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
“We will look at the cases brought before us to know if they are actual challenges or part of malpractice.
“This is because we discovered that some candidates have done something they intend to take advantage of the biometric verification challenge as an excuse, so we need to ascertain the genuineness of these cases.
”I assure you we are looking at it and would do something,” he said.
Meanwhile, the board reacted to stories making the rounds on social media saying that it prevented students putting hijab from sitting for the UTME.
Via a statement issued in Twitter, the board said:
“The attention of the Board was drawn to a story making rounds on social media about an incident concerning a candidate that was allegedly asked to remove her hijab before entering the examination hall.
”The Board would like to state clearly that our rule does not prevent female candidates from wearing hijab or other dresses that defines their faith.
“We would continue to ensure that people exercise their freedom of religion even with the conduct of our examination so far it doesn’t compromise the sanctity of our examination.
”However, at every centre 2 security operatives (one male and one female) are on ground to screen candidates with dignity and respect. All officials were duly briefed on how to.
”This incident must have been the result of an over zealous security agent( if at all it happened) and not aimed at disrespecting the candidate’s religion.”
