JAMB announces resumption of direct entry registration, sets new guidelines

The nationwide 2023 Direct Entry registration has resumed, according to a Monday announcement from the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board.

The DE registration will end on April 28, 2023, according to Professor Is-haq Oloyede, the Registrar of JAMB, who announced this at a press conference on Monday in Abuja.

Oloyede bemoaned the high rate of A Level certificates being falsified and used for registration while announcing new rules the board had put in place to prevent such behavior.

He said, “You will recall that the board commenced the 2023 Direct Entry registration on Monday, 20th February, 2023, but had to immediately suspend it following the discovery of the plethora of devices and machinations to circumvent and compromise the standard of A’ Level qualifications required from DE candidates.

“Recall that recent joint operations of the Federal Ministry of Education and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission on DE qualifications brought to light some of these unsavoury and nefarious activities.

“Bayero University, Kano  has also consistently brought to the fore the high rate of forgery of A’ Level qualifications for DE.

“For instance, it was discovered that in previous years, some candidates used unacceptable and forged A’ level certificates/qualifications to register for Direct Entry and eventually got admitted. For example, out of 148 candidates verified by BUK, only six were found to be genuine. By implication, 142 of the results were forged.

“The Board, concerned stakeholders and institutions are working assiduously to detect such and the ones already found are being dealt with according to the provisions of the law.”

For the 2023 Direct Entry registration, Oloyede continued, the Board would only accept 13 credentials/certificates, including first degrees, university diplomas, higher national diplomas, ordinary national diplomas/national diplomas, and Nigeria Certificates in Education.

The National Registered Nurse/National Registered Midwife, International Baccalaureate, Interim Joint Matriculation Board A’ Level, Joint Universities Preliminary Examination Board A’ Level, NABTEB Advanced National Business Certificate, NABTEB Advanced National Technical Certificate, NABTEB GCE-A’ Level (2015 – 2021), Higher Islamic Studies Certificate by NBAIS, and National Registered Nurse/National Registered Midwife are among the others.

The 127 applicants who had previously registered for the 2023 DE before the process was postponed, he added, would be asked to visit the registration centers again and update their application.

The JAMB chairman also announced that the data bank put in place to address difficulties linked with the A’ Level credentials had now been renamed as ‘Nigeria Post-secondary Education Data System’.

Oloyede stated that JAMB had implemented new measures in the administration of the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination and urged understanding.

“The Board has instituted some measures which are to be deployed during the 2023 UTME exercise. Despite the fact that the innovations have been tested and certified, yet it is not unlikely that some hiccups might spring up when the new technology is deployed live and nationwide. We therefore solicit your support and understanding as we promptly address any unforeseen circumstances.

“One major feature of the new dispensation is that no examination would be allowed to take place after one hour of its scheduled start time because the Board has discovered that some of the problems reported at the centres are contrived to delay the commencement of a session in some centres with a view to securing undue advantage for the delayed candidates.

“Consequently, any session that, for whatever reason(s), could not take off within one hour of its schedule is automatically rescheduled. When such occurs, affected candidates are expected to file out of the examination hall into the waiting hall and await the new scheduled time and place which most likely would be the same or following day,” he said.