Jamb candidates protests; Demands exam be postponed

 Jamb 2017 Aspirants protests over the new jamb system of admission and demand UTME2018 exam be postponed.

Protesters took to the streets yesterday in Lagos to demand that the UTME exam which have been dated to hold from march 9th-17th should be extended. After 2017 admission was pronounce closed in late January, the frustrated aspirants claimed to have been confused on admission processing with introduction of caps system and think jamb should extend the UTME 2018 till may.


Placards, banners, papers, were used during the protest with various type of inscription like;“Admissions are yet to close, why conducting another UTME now?”; “JAMB isn’t for revenue generation, stop milking our parents,” “2017 UTME held in May, why March in 2018?”, “2017 admissions not transparent”.

Many argued the rationality of fixing another JAMB exam in March when the 2017/2018 Admission exercise had barely ended.

Many of the 2016/17 aspirant had hope to be admitted with the invention of caps (central admission processing system) only to find out that jamb had admission for 2017 shut off late January, meanwhile demanding additional time as they feel a month wouldn't be enough to study for another exam.

Speaking on this, the president of Association Of Tutorial School Operators ATSO, the person Dotun Sodunke said the head of jamb, Prof Isaac Oloyede needs to be called to order with clear statement that the basis of jamb establishment wasn't revenue generation but to conduct exam for students and ensure proper diligence as the students are future of the country.

“JAMB is sure that if they conduct the exam early, many candidates would fail, and they would come back to register again next year. This is so because their children don’t school here." He said.

In response to this, the joint admission and matriculation spokesman Dr Fabian Benjamin said that it's actually not the candidates who wants the jamb to be postponed but the tutorial operators who want the extension badly; so as to keep the candidates in their tutorial centre till may as that will increase their revenue generation.

He furthered his Explanation that the federal government want to ensure a static, fast and stable academic calendar this year and have sent instructions to jamb to ensure that admission processing for this year is concluded by August. He said that commencement of the exam by march is absolutely unshakable as the instruction from federal government must be duly followed.