7 Strategies Used for Malpractice in 2019 UTME by CBT Centers & Others

Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB Lists Seven {7} Strategies Used for Examination Malpractice by Candidates, Parents & Computer Based Test Centers in 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.

Following the announcement of results for 2019 UTME the Registrar of the Joint Admission Matriculation Board, JAMB Professor Isaq Oloyede has disclosed the various strategies used for examination malpractice by candidates, parents and centers in the concluded examination.

RECOMMENDED: 2019 UTME Results Statistics: 1.7 Million Results Out, 49,000 Withheld.

2019 UTME: 7 Strategies Used for Malpractice by CBT Candidates, Parents and CBT Centers

Some of the strategies deployed to compromise the integrity of the examination were as follows:

1. Multiple Registration: It would be recalled that JAMB had cautioned in the media that no candidate should register more than once and that multiple registrations adversely affect data which impact negatively on education planning in the country.

We went further to announce that any candidate who wishes to gain admission through Direct Entry and had registered for UTME need not apply for DE separately but use the opportunity of an upgrade to the DE status at no cost without having to register more than once.

Double registrations led to the cancellation of some results last year but we realized that this year not only double registrations but also multiple registrations were recorded.

Someone for instance registered as many as 23 times for just a single examination! The foundation of examination malpractice is laid at the point of registration with the active connivance of some CBT centre owners who allowed themselves to be infiltrated by some who parade themselves as owners of tutorial classes.

Unfortunately, some elite institutions that charge exorbitant fees, which they had made the parents part with in the name of secondary education, became active in the procurement of ‘best results’ for their students at all costs.

These characters have permeated the system such that it is Herculean to confront and dislodge them.

When one of the examination bodies recently decided that one category of teachers would not supervise its public examinations, all hell was let loose.

However, the truth of the matter is that the body is correct in its resolve. There are many ways of multiple registration.

While the rich procure graduates and senior undergraduates to write examinations in the name of their pampered children who will then use the highest score to obtain admission to some institutions of choice, the not-too-rich do multiple registrations by simply re-arranging their names, then claim the highest of the scores obtained.

The extent of this infraction is appreciated through the huge amount of money JAMB makes from the correction of names , dates of birth by the perpetrators.

One of the major strategies of JAMB to counter this is the introduction of a short code where every candidate types his or her name and sends it directly to 55019 on the particular phone.

This was introduced in 2018 UTME but it did not reduce the menace of multiple registrations as over N200 million was still paid to JAMB by the syndicate to correct data relating to pre-meditated name -error.

Another means deployed was to register more than one candidate who will all log into the exam hall and log out the legitimate owner who would now call for help as a result of not being able to access the questions.

This scenario will ultimately cause the rescheduling of exams and allow professional examination writers to have as many candidates as possible to sit for.

The Board this year has deployed appropriate technologies to detect not only the facial duplication of candidates but also biometric multiplication.

The Board has also gone as far as identifying identical twins and siblings whose existence should be recognised but not allowed to create a loophole for the fraudsters.

Many twins across the country will testify that we were in touch with them as a way of verifying their identities.

For those we are not sure of their distinct identities, we have created a platform to justify their characteristics in order not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Those who belong to this doubtful category are treated as follows:

a) Those who have facial identities in multiples are cross-checked further by ascertaining their fingerprints. Where fingerprints are not identical or not more than two registrants even if their fingers are identical, we give them the benefit of the doubt especially when only one exam was taken.

b) We canceled those with multiple registration and who wrote two or more examination with identical finger prints. We therefore caution that this is the last time that double registration will be given any consideration.

Henceforth, anyone who registers more than once will be taken to have engaged in examination malpractice and be treated as such. The bloated figure of registrants distorts data and derail proper planning.

2. Impersonation: In the 2019 UTME, we were able to identify a large number of impersonators who have been writing UTME for candidates.

Most of the tutorial masters specialize in recruiting such professional writers for the candidates.

They do so by using the names directly or variants of the name or by multiple registrations.

An example is Anambra State where two centres registered a large number of impersonating candidates. In such cases, the results of the candidates have been cancelled and the CBT centres delisted.

We have also tracked the registration centres and the computers used. In cases where we were able to ascertain the culpability of the centres, we delisted them. Where we have doubts, our principle is that we would rather allow 10 criminals to go scot-free than allow an innocent person to be unjustly punished.

Another dimension of impersonation is a futile attempt of defeating the biometric capturing of ten fingers that was introduced in 2017.

The fraudsters thought they could beat the system through ‘contributed fingers’ where two or more persons would use their fingers to register for candidates thinking that any of them would be able to write for such candidates if the system allowed it.

Two examples of this case are in the Aminu Saleh College of Education, Azare, where someone’s finger(s) was discovered in 42 person’s registration and Bauchi State University, Gadau, where one person’s is traced to the registration of 64 candidates with a view to allowing any of the finger-contributing impersonators to access the examination hall.

The Board went to the extent of interacting with the principal officers of the institution in Azare. We must appreciate the Council Chairman and Provost of the College whose cooperation led to the confession of the culprit that he contributed the fingers in good faith.

The confession, as bad as it was, is good for the Board as without it, there would have been doubts in the accuracy of the technology deployed to determine and detect the infraction.

Another example was in Borno State where in Nassara Computer Academy Maiduguri 233 candidates had one particular finger included in each of their biometric registration.

We have made representative arrests and we must thank the Inspector-General of Police and the Commandant-General of the NSCDC for their wonderful cooperation.

The IGP actually set up a Special Task Force of the Force Intelligence Bureau (FIB) which assisted tremendously in tracking the offenders.

Initially, people thought that what happened in the US in the timely conviction of those involved in the admission scandal could not happen in Nigeria.

However, it is gratifying that today, some convictions have been made not only because of the infallibility of the evidence presented but also the uprightness of the judges in dispensing justice without delay.

It is only an ardent pessimist that would doubt the advent of the positive change in the Nigerian judiciary.

3. Deliberate Disruption of the Examination Process: Many candidates had been tutored by fraudsters to disconnect cables and power sources with a view to claiming disruption and in the process allow mercenaries to execute their pre-planned agenda.

This is not to claim that there were no genuine cases of technical hitches in which cases prompt action of rescheduling was taken.

There was a case of a purported fire outbreak in an Abuja centre which did not burn a single ceiling made of cardboard.

While scrutinising the place, there was a so-called professor who presented himself as a JAMB official just to gain entrance to the examination centre to do a hatchet job because his daughter was writing the examination in the centre.

Some candidates had been caught who confessed that they were told by their mothers not to log in in the examination hall.

Candidates with Registration Numbers 95040702IC and 95038921JA at Heritage and Infinity Centre in Abia belong to this category, one of whom when notified of her inactivity 30 minutes into the examination claimed she was still praying.

Where such candidates were forced to log in, it was realized that mercenaries had logged in with the candidates’ number thereby loging out the original candidates.

They confessed that their mothers asked them to simply do nothing in the examination in order to allow the proxy to log in and use their registration number.

Such proxies wrote for as many as three candidates in one session and contrived some hitches to further gain more time for more clients.

4. Manipulation of Biometrics: Since the beginning of CBT in JAMB, biometrics has been incorporated into the registration process.

There was an “exemption mode” for anyone who could not be biometrically verified to be manually verified.

At the 2018 UTME, over 3,000 candidates were said to have biometric issues.

JAMB then introduced a new dimension to the process which requires a candidate after registration to print the registration slip using his/her thumb.

This shows that a candidate with biometric issues would not have been able to print his/her registration slip.

In order to safeguard the integrity of the process, JAMB introduced the double screen such that data being entered are seen and certified by the candidate.

In the 2019 exercise, those who had medical or other peculiar problems regarding their finger prints were sponsored by JAMB to its headquarters for both the registration and the examination.

Thereafter, exemption mode was cancelled and candidates were to be biometrically verified before gaining access to the examination halls.

Most of the problems that arose in this process were self-inflicted by candidates who registered at unauthorised centres as evident in cases at Abeokuta and Osogbo where grand technology infrastructure was mounted to register in distance places..

Equally, a number of infractions were traced to the elite schools whose proprietors paid a lot of money to lure CBT centre owners to group registration and in the process mix up the data of candidates.

Such schools lured the CBT owners to shift routers and in the process corrupt data thereby creating problems for the candidates.

5. Collusion of Some Private CBT Centres with Parents: Unknown to many, that the robust of question bank of JAMB makes it possible for the deployment of as many sets of questions as the number of sessions in a year.

They devised means of recording deployed live questions with a wrong notion that such would be helpful to later writers of the year’s UTME .

Some private CBT centres engage in examination malpractice by taking screen shots of the questions and selling them to tutorial centres.

At Risk Global Centre, Anthony, Lagos, for example, the owner (Mr Godswill Okpai) and two of his sons (David Emeka Okpai and Ebere Obinna Okpai) as well as the local Technical Officer of the centre took screen shots of questions from the computers in his centre and sold same to the tutorial centres for N5000 per screen shot.

One notorious buyer-Embassy-who owns a tutorial centre is currently on the run.

These tutors sale these questions to gullible parents/candidates without knowing that we don’t repeat questions.

One saving grace was the quality of supervision provided by the Board. For example, a PhD holder who had headed a federal parastatal for eight years was the supervisor in Palmgrove who was not only unbuyable but also had all the wherewithal to effectively supervise and detect the illicit transactions.

6. A Syndicate of Close Centres: A syndicate of centres conniving to perpetrate malpractice have also been discovered.

They take undue advantage of the fact that the Board does want candidates to transverse long distance to sit the examination which made the Board to group close centres together as an examination town.

These allows as few as two, three or four to be in an examination town. This lofty idea has been abused by collusion of all the centres in a town to collectively perpetrate examination malpractice.

Oxford Computer Institute and Young Stars in Imo State connived with parents and candidates to organise examination syndicates at these two centres.

Similar arrangement played out in the creation of an examination town made up of Bauchi State University, Gadau and Aminu Saleh College of Education, Azare.

We have identified the candidates involved and their results are withheld. While not being aware that JAMB was monitoring, the two centres in Akokwe in Ideato examination town paid N1,760,000.00 to compromise the staff on duty.

The staff concern are being investigated to determine their culpability.

There were cases of staff who accepted the offer of free accommodation from CBT owners, We are investigating and at the end of the day we would also not spare our staff if found culpable.

At Heritage and Infinity as well as Okwyzil Computer Institute, Comprehensive Secondary School in Abia, the extent of malpractice perpetrated had made JAMB to cancel all the examinations taken at the centres, apologize to the candidates and re-schedule their examinations.

Also in this category is Clems Business System Ltd, Umuahia, Abia State. The CBT centres of Ekiti State College of Education, Ikere, and St Silas Anglican Secondary School, Omuo-Ekiti, were also involved in collusion.

In the case of the Ekiti College of Education, the College apprehended the culprit (Its staff), handed him over to the police and ensured that appropriate disciplinary measures were taken while the police continue with the prosecution.

Given these impressive steps, the College CBT Centre was restored.

Meanwhile, among the centres to be suspended pending further investigation is the CBT Centre of the College of Education, centre of Excellence and Information Technology (CEIT), Agbor, Delta State.

7.Extortion of Candidates: Under the pretext that centres are collecting the 700 registration service charge from candidates or paying for reading text, or the mock examination at the centres, candidates are being massively extorted at centres, some even use military uniform as gatemen to collect toll.