2021 is the year of consolidation – JAMB

The year 2021 promises to be one of consolidation as the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) aggregates all the achievements it has recorded from the inception of the Oloyede-led Management in 2016 to date. This is to ensure that all are well-grounded and institutionalised to make room for continuity even after the tenure of the present leadership.

The year 2020 is globally believed to be a very difficult and challenging year and the Board has also had its fair share of these challenges and disruptions occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a year like no other in its four decades of existence.

In the same year, the Board lost some of its icons, including a foremost traditional ruler in Ondo State, Oba Isreal Adeusi, the Olufon of Ifon (First Class Oba). Oba Adeusi was employed by the Board because of his specialty y in Test Measurement. As a staff of the Board, he was exceptional with unparalleled

commitment to duty.

Yet another unforgettable icon is Mall. Bello Abdulmumuni Nuhu. Mall. Nuhu, as he was fondly called by his admirers, was in charge of the Board’s National Headquarters Annex, Kaduna. He was not only instrumental to the acquisition of the land on which the Annex is built but was also active in the various roles in the construction of the edifice, now renamed “Zonal Office, Kaduna”. These two great personalities and several others worthy of mention were worthy ambassadors of the Board.

In fact, many agencies and individuals alike would live to continue to ponder on the many disruptions to lives and programmes, among others, that took place in the outgoing year.

As a Board, we will continue to condole with families that lost their loved ones. In the meantime, the Board would continue to accommodate its critical engagements with relevant stakeholders to ensure that its operational processes are intact.

The Board is particularly lucky as it had concluded its 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination before the nationwide lockdown. However, the Board did not escape completely unscathed, and as JP Clark says in his classic Poem “The Casualties “:  “The casualties are many, and a good number as well outside the scenes of ravage and wreck…” Consequently, the various constraints and lockdowns invariably impacted many other backend processes which have negatively impacted the commencement of the sale of its 2021 application documents.

However, what actually defines competence is how one navigates the sundry setbacks. This is why the Board, in spite of all the disruptions to public activities, would see the year 2020 as one of the years in its four-decade existence where it was able to churn out landmark achievements. The first in this regard was its innovation that ensured that all candidates sitting its examination use their biometric identification to login before the examination could be deployed. Similarly, it mandated the recapturing of the biometrics of candidates who claimed that they could not login. These were to curb identity theft.

In addition to the various COVID-19 preventive protocols rolled out by the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on Covid-19, the Board had come up with its novel “Appointment Booking Platform” whereby candidates could book appointments through their mobile phones. It also reinforced its existing ” Ticketing Platform” for online interaction. Furthermore, it introduced the use of “One-Time Password”(OTP) for extra security. All these measures were aimed at curbing overcrowding at its various offices nationwide.

The Board has, in the last four years, focused more attention on addressing the myriads of challenges militating against credible conduct of high-stakes examinations like the UTME. This is as a result of the fraudulent elements who had been having a field day perpetrating their nefarious activities. However, with the coming of the Oloyede-led Management on Board, it took ample advantage of technology to confront these examination cabals and root them out completely.

Consequently, in addressing the various challenges hampering the smooth conduct of its many operational processes, the Board had to devise ways and means of ensuring that its system is not vulnerable to unwholesome elements.

Prof. Oloyede’s transformation agenda had begun with the total overhaul of the registration exercise where malpractice is believed to begin by changing the entire registration template starting from the introduction of virtual pins to curb the corruption associated with the scratch card system; the creation of profile by candidates during registration; the capturing of all ten fingers and the live capturing of images (picture) as against the old practice of scanning of passports.

These measures and many more had succeeded in stemming the incidence of impersonation. The architectural template of conducting the Board’s examination was also changed in the early stage of this administration starting with the discarding of the old and expensive VSAT platform in favour of the use of telcos VPN as a vehicle for the deployment of its examinations. Another is the use of CCTV cameras for monitoring live proceedings before, during and after the examination to curb any unwarranted circumstances.

To secure maximum support and buy-in of critical stakeholders, the Oloyede-led Management team initiated the inclusion of major segments of the society in its flagship examination and other processes.

Admission, which is the end product of the entire process, was transformed with the introduction of the Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) which eliminates all forms of human intervention thus ensuring equity and fairness in the admission process.

Furthermore, the Board embarked on the massive training of its staff for capacity building which had seen its staff handling major processes which were hitherto handled by service providers, all of which had combined with prudent management of scarce resources, leading to the remittance of over N30 billion in the last four years.

These humongous remittances to the Treasury Single Account notwithstanding, the Board expanded its examination infrastructure in almost all the States of the Federation with mega CBT centres sprouting all over the nation.

To crown all these efforts is the massive welfare packages brought into being by the present Management of the Board which has completely changed the tenor of service delivery by the staff. These innovations and many others that space would not permit us to mention have birthed a new image of the Board cherished at home and abroad.

Given the foregoing, the year 2021 promises not only to be fruitful but also to be an aggregation of all that is good in terms of rendering selfless service to the fatherland.

(culled from JAMBulletin)