JAMB’s computer test of horror

Stranded JAMB candidates waiting to write their exams at the WAEC office, Jakande Road, Agidingbi, Ikeja... on Saturday.

Frustration seems to be at the centre of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board organised Computer-Based Test for candidates seeking admission to the nation’s tertiary institutions this year, our correspondents report

With four more days to the end of this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, information from many stakeholders still does not sound so pleasant.

Indeed, for many concerned candidates and their parents, the journey in the past one week has been one long narrative of frustrations and disappointments, sprinkled with intermittent rays of hope.

From states, such as Lagos, Rivers, Ekiti, Osun, Delta and more, many candidates wore long faces, just as some called for the cancellation of the examination.

In their thinking, the full-blown Computer-Based Test, which started last Tuesday in no fewer than 400 centres

and in seven overseas countries, has been characterised by such challenges as delays, server failure and sometimes outright change in the date of the examination. No fewer than 1.4 million candidates are sitting the compulsory electronic examination. Before now, candidates had the option of sitting for the test via the Paper Pencil Test and Dual-Based Test.

Examples of frustration abound. A candidate, Miss Chinasa Egbuebe, walked up to the Biometric Operator, Mrs. Folashade Familoni, to carry out her after-the-examination verification. First, she pushed her right thumb into the image-recognition device. “No, that does not click. Do it again,” came the voice of Familoni.

Egbuebe, who just finished her three-hour examination at the Bufuto Computer Centre, Egbe, Lagos, made two quick attempts on the card reader-like object on the table, yet the response from the operator was “No, that did not add up.”

“Try your left thumb”, Familoni advised Egbuebe and the young JAMBite tried it and that again did not solve the image-recognition problem. Then the biometric operator thundered, “I wonder what is wrong with your body. You had better go for a malaria test. Before then, just go there and wait.”

While Egbuebe was waiting for another opportunity to confirm that she truly sat for the examination, her heart kept pounding so hard from anxiety that our correspondent who stood close to her thought it was going to jump out of her chest. Agreed, she had finished her exam, she was still drenched in frustration.

Interestingly, the experience of Egbuebe is just the tip of the iceberg. The story of the publisher of Printing News magazine, Mr. Tony Akinsoyinu, is even more frustrating. According to him, his daughter who was to sit for the examination on Thursday, March 12 at the Command Secondary School, Ipaja, Lagos could not do so on that fateful day. The server failure in the school prompted the authorities of JAMB to move the candidates to another centre at the WAEC Agidingbi-Ikeja office.

He said, “It was when she arrived at the CSS Ipaja for the examination that she realised that her centre had been changed. Nobody gave us any prior notice of the shift in venue. The transfer got many other candidates stranded. Of course, my daughter did not bother to go to the WAEC office that day, considering the long journey and the traffic between Ipaja and Ikeja.

“In the morning the next day, I drove her to WAEC office, Ikeja, only to realise that there were many other candidates waiting. I mean pupils who would have sat for the test on Wednesday and Thursday at CSS Ipaja. To compound their problems, the examination officials had their own challenge: they needed to first attend to the original candidates posted to the Ikeja centre before looking the way of others from a different centre. This, of course, resulted in frustration, as we were there till about 9pm when my daughter eventually finished her own test.”

Beyond Lagos, it was the same challenging story at Asaba, Delta State. Things did not work out well in the first two days of the examination at the JAMB Office Centre along Okpanam Road, Asaba. One of our correspondents noted that many candidates who could not sit for the examination on the first two days had theirs re-programmed for last Thursday and Friday, while some took theirs on Monday (yesterday).

Due to the system collapse, the frustrated candidates laid siege to JAMB office, forcing officials to flee when they could not pacify the candidates.

On Wednesday, the guardians of one of the candidates came in from Agbor in search of their son, whose name they gave as Emma Orhuavwe. His elder brother, Gooday, said Emma left home for Asaba on Tuesday for the examination without his mobile phone.

According to him, when he did not return and did not call on Tuesday, they had to come to Asaba on Wednesday, only to find out that the examination did not hold on that day.

On Saturday when our correspondent visited the JAMB Office Centre, there appeared to still be some hitches. For instance, at midday, the ushering in of the second batch of candidates did not take place, as the first batch was still in the examination hall due to what one of the candidates said was “an initial challenge they had with the computers.”

He said the questions were not uploading and so it took a while before the system came on again.

In Rivers State, authorities of the University of Science and Technology on Saturday turned back the UTME candidates because of lack of space. The authorities claimed they had an internal examination for their students and so could not accommodate the UTME candidates.

A technologist at the RSUST, Mr. Zeete Ngor, confirmed this development. He said, “I learnt that JAMB sent messages to affected students, who were asked to reprint their centres at cybercafés and immediately move to other centres.

“We learnt that JAMB had circulated the message of the change of examination centre to the affected students. But as it is, JAMB exam will not hold here today.”

However, a candidate who identified herself as Jane said she was not aware of the change.

Though efforts to reach out to the JAMB Zonal Coordinator, Mrs. Beatrice Etta-Nyiam, were futile, an employee of the board, who refused to mention his name, said the board passed on information concerning the change of centre from UST to the University of Port Harcourt a week earlier.

The JAMB employee explained that her office used about three Port Harcourt-based radio stations to disseminate the information and wondered why any candidate would claim that she was not aware of the change.

“For those candidates that went to UST to write the exams, the board had earlier made an announcement on some radio stations in Port Harcourt that the centre in UST had been moved to UNIPORT, and that affected candidates should go and reprint their slips.

“Even the RIVPOLY centre has also been moved to UNIPORT due to poor service because the RIVPOLY server will not be able to carry our data, including candidate’s information. So, in order to protect the candidates’ information, we moved them to UNIPORT and carried out the subsequent announcements.

“Again, when we moved the exam and fixed a new date, we sent text messages to candidates. So if there is any of them still agitating, that person is not ready to do the exam. It was UST that said it would be holding its internal exams throughout the week and would not be able to take the UTME candidates,” he added.

From Ondo State, although JAMB officials said the conduct of the examination was smooth, some candidates disagreed with them.

Some candidates at the Federal University of Technology, Akure centre, noted that the board did not keep to its 6am schedule for the commencement of verification.

One of the candidates, Adedayo Lawrence, said, “I was filled with anxiety as I waited for them for them to start the verification. In fact, I was demoralised.

“Even at that, some systems they used had problems because of the server. It was just a recurring case of booting and rebooting of the system. This made some candidates to wait until others finished before they could start theirs.”

But an ICT manager at the centre, Abdulmajid Yusuff, noted that since this was the first time the board was embarking on comprehensive CBT, there was going to be room for improvement.

He said, “The major problem is that some of the candidates do not know how to operate the system. They may know the answers to the questions, but they often do not how to operate the computer. This is a serious problem.

“Although we had some challenges on the first day of the exam, they were quickly rectified. CBT has cancelled all manner of examination malpractice.”

However, as Yusuff claimed that the CBT was an elixir for curbing examination malpractice, security operatives arrested two candidates for examination malpractice at the Osun State College of Technology, Esa Oke centre on Saturday.

The suspects reportedly conspired with the owner of the centre to perpetrate the crime.

The state JAMB Coordinator, Mr. Johnson Adebiyi, while decrying the fraud, promised that the board would endeavour to end malpractice in its examination.

Confirming the arrest, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Mrs. Folasade Odoro, said the command was investigating the case.

Meanwhile in such states as Ekiti and Akwa Ibom, many candidates commended the board for the conduct of the examination.

According to them, the CBT is a good innovation that other examination bodies in the country need to embrace.

Ibukun Ogundele, who did the examination at the College of Education, Ikere Ekiti, said, “The conduct of the examination was okay. There is the need to commend the board for a job well done. I recommend this for other exam bodies.”

Another candidate, Wale Aliyu, said, “We had no problems at my centre. The server was okay and the instructors guided those that found computer unfriendly.”

Esther Zakius, who sat for the test at the IBBIL ICT Academy, Uyo, said the e-exam ensured maximum concentration.