The Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Ishaq Oloyede, has said the directive on compulsory use of National Identity Number (NIN) for the registration of the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), would help in checkmating examination malpractices and security threat.
He explained that the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, gave the directive for the Board to enforce the use of NIN as a prerequisite for UTME and Direct Entry registration.
Oloyede spoke on Friday in Abuja during a virtual meeting with owners of Computer Based Test Centres, service providers and other stakeholders to kick-start the 2021 UTME registration.
The attempt to introduce NIN for UTME registration a few years ago was met with fierce resistance by prospective candidates because of low enrolment for the National Identity Card by Nigerians on the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) platform.
However, with the current massive registration to meet the deadline for NIN-SIM linkage, the Board is confident every Nigerian willing to sit for the 2021 examination or apply for Direct Entry, would have registered and obtained the NIN.
According to Oloyede, the use of NIN would check impersonation and multiple registrations by candidates which some of them use to commit examination fraud.
He noted that over 100 centres were delisted between 2020 and 2021 for various infractions including registration and examination malpractice.
