JAMB Registrar Speaks On Reduction Of UTME Registration Fee

JAMB Registrar Vows Not To Reduce UTME Registration Fee

As calls persist from various quarters in the country for the reduction in the cost fee for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has declared that it would not bow to public pressure to crash its registration fee, which it said is presently the lowest in the world.

The JAMB Registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, stated this on Wednesday in Abuja while addressing newsmen following increasing concerns raised by stakeholders in education sector about the fee for the registration.

According to him, JAMB registration fee would still be pegged at the current amount.

Oloyode, who spoke after a computer-based promotion examination held for JAMB’s staff, said the fee being charged by the board was one of the lowest in the entire world.

“Why are they not asking WAEC (to reduce fee)? Why are they not asking NECO? Why are they not asking NABTEB? Why JAMB? We charge the least and you are saying reduce.

“The issue is because we have a means of managing the resources properly and we now have what you can call surplus and because we are open enough to return the surplus to government you now say we should crash the cost.

“What should be the basis of crashing the cost assuming the method we are using now is no longer available and we have to use the old method,” he said.

He, however, said the examination body would only follow directive from the appropriate quarters on the cost of UTME.

“If the government feels we should adjust, we will adjust and not as a result of unqualified, baseless request (in some quarters),” Oloyede said.

Bear in mind that JAMB had sold its 2018 UTME application form for N5, 000 while it remitted N7.8billion to the Federal Government at the end of the exam.