The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) said it registered a total of 1, 736, 571 candidates for the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), which marked a deviation from the past.

The registrar of JAMB, Is-haq Oloyede, disclosed this at the news briefing on Tuesday in Bwari, in preparations for the conduct of this year’s UTME.

Mr. Oloyede, who gave a breakdown detail of duly registered candidates for the UTME, said the total figure marked a deviation from the past, in terms of registration.

“In the last UTME conducted in 2016, a total of 1, 272, 284 candidates registered for the 2015.

“The figure for the 2017 UTME shows an increase of 464, 287 applicants when compared with last year’s figure of 1, 272, 284,” Oloyede said.

He said that Imo state had the highest applications having 101, 868, this was followed by Osun, Oyo, and Ogun with 88, 655, 87, 811 and 81, 349, respectively among the top ten.

Others include, Delta – 81, 108, Anambra – 77, 253, Kaduna – 72, 104, Kano – 70, 276, Kogi – 70, 150 and Benue – 68, 916.

He also said that a total of 321 visually candidates registered to partake in the examination and that adequate arrangement had been provided to ensure their effective participation in the exam.

He mentioned that frontiers had been expanded to deal with perceived challenges associated with conduct of the examination, to hold in 624 centres nationwide, as against 524 centres recorded last year.

He decried lack of valuable information on JAMB activities; Computer Based Test (CBT) and misconception cut-off point were major challenges to have affected the Board’s image negatively.

According to him, many parents and candidates have not recovered from what many called “technophobia” the fear of technology, which makes them think CBT method is cumbersome.

“By providing information and enlightenment before, during and after the examination, with support from government and the media, I believe that our candidates and other stakeholders will be empowered.”

He said that cut-off points was not set by JAMB, but by policy committee been chaired by the Minister of Education with the Board, Vice-Chancellors, Provost of Education and Polytechnic Rectors.

He described cut-off points to be a minimum requirement and not an indication that one was admissible

He reiterated the Board’s resolve to prepare more after learning all the lessons from its past to organize for a successful examination.

“Following the continuous determination to curb the incidence of examination malpractice and other related offences, we will use the Biometric Verification Machine to verify candidates before admitting them for exam.”

He, however, warned candidates to desist from seeking reposting from exam centre assigned to them to another, adding that there would be no rescheduling of examination. (NAN)