By Our Reporter
The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has disclosed why the examination body wouldn’t announce the names of the highest-scoring candidates in the just concluded 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
He stated this during a press briefing in Bwari, Abuja on Monday, recalling that hitherto, the Board had been unwilling to disclose its yearly top scorers.
Oloyede said this is due to the avoidance of “a repeat of the Mmesoma saga,” while the board also considers the UTME as “only a ranking examination,” among other reasons.
Mmesoma Ejikeme, a UTME candidate from Anambra State, was embroiled with JAMB in 2023 when she claimed to have scored 362 out of a total of 400.
Upon investigations, the examination body barred her from taking the UTME for three years and also withheld her results.
For this year’s results, over 1.94 million candidates registered and sat the examination in 118 towns and over 700 centres across the country, while 77 per cent scored less than 200.
The JAMB Registrar stated, “It is common knowledge that the Board has, at various fora, restated its unwillingness to publish the names of its best-performing candidates, as it considers its UTME as only a ranking examination on account of the other parameters that would constitute what would later be considered the minimum admissible score for candidates seeking admission to tertiary institutions.
“Similarly, because of the different variables adopted by respective institutions, it might be downright impossible to arrive at a single or all-encompassing set of parameters for generating a list of candidates with the highest admissible score, as gaining admission remains the ultimate goal. Hence, it might be unrealistic or presumptive to say a particular candidate is the highest scorer given the fact that such a candidate may, in the final analysis, not even be admitted.
“However, owing to public demand and to avoid a repeat of the Mmesoma saga as well as provide a guide for those who may want to award prizes to this set of high-performing candidates, the Board appeals to all concerned to always verify claims by candidates before offering such awards.”