From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) yesterday said it has made adequate provisions for 321 visually-impaired candidates who are among the 1,731,031 candidates that registered for the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
A breakdown of candidates based on states indicated that Imo State leads with 101,868 applicants, followed by Osun with 88,653. Other states in the top 10 are Oyo (87,811), Ogun (81, 349), Delta (81,108), Anambra (77,253), Kaduna (72,104), Kano (70,276), Kogi (70,150) and Benue (68,916) .
JAMB registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, said in Abuja that the board has strengthened its ICT base against external cyber attacks and backed up all vital information.
He said aside from the procurement of equipment needed for seamless examinations, JAMB engaged experts to cater for visually-impaired persons during the examinations.
“It is our desire to ensure that no candidate is deprived of taking the examination. The exam would be conducted using JAMB’s equal opportunity group, a group of experts in education, who have graciously assisted in the assessment exercise,” he said.
He said JAMB was ready for the exercise commencing tomorrow.
Each test center, according to JAMB, would have a supervisor, technical officer, verification officer, three proctors and security agents.
“Each state would be superintended over by a head of a tertiary institution either a vice chancellor, rector or provost who would coordinate other supervisors under his or her jurisdiction,” he added.