2022 UTME registration to be cashless; as JAMB introduces computer Studies, Physical & Health Education

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has announced that as from the 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) exercise, it will be collecting the approved N700 registration fee on behalf of the various Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres along with its UTME registration fees.

According to the current edition of JAMBulletin, after collecting the fees, the Board will then remit whatever is due to each registration centre to its bank account on a weekly basis or any timeframe acceptable to the centre owners.

It explained that this laudable step was borne out of a painstaking review of the entire UTME registration process which has revealed some unethical and unacceptable practices by many CBT centres.

Also, candidates sitting the UTME can now pick Computer Studies or Physical and Health Education as part of their four UTME subjects if they so desire or as dictated by their programme preferences.

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This is made possible following the addition, by the Board, of the two subjects to the existing 23 UTME subjects to make them 25 beginning from the 2022 UTME exercise.

According to the Board, this addition is to enhance the career prospects of students transiting to tertiary institutions.

At present, the 23 UTME subjects are :1Agricultural Science, Arabic, Art, Biology, Chemistry, Christian Religious Studies, Commerce, Economics, French, Geography, Government, Hausa, History, Home Economics, Igbo, Islamic Studies, Literature in-English, Mathematics, Music, Physics, Principles of Accounts, Use of English and Yoruba.

It is to be noted that these centres are allowed to collect only seven hundred naira (N700) as registration charges but
some fraudulent centre owners misused that opportunity to engage in conduct unbecoming of respectable establishments as they indulge in massive extortion of candidates, among others, during the exercise.

Consequently, the Board has resolved to henceforth make the UTME registration process cashless to put a stop to such acts of extortion.

This intervention will block all loopholes through which hapless candidates are extorted by unconscionable service providers.

This process will not, in any way, increase the cost of UTME registration which remains as it was in the previous year. As
such, it is only the process of payment that has changed not the cost. It would be recalled that in the previous years, candidates pay the sum of N700 at the centres.

However, with the new policy, candidates simply walk into any registration centre and register without paying anything as the fee hitherto payable to the centre had been paid along with the cost of obtaining the e-PINS. (Report by National Accord)