CBT Centre Owners In Lagos Dissociate Selves From National Body

COMPUTER-Based Test, CBT, Centre owners in Lagos State have described as offensive a statement by Computer-Based Test Centres Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria, CPAN, stating that the failure of biometric and browsers provided by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, for the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME was responsible for the inability of some candidates to sit for the examination.

The group dissociated themselves from CPAN, following a publication by a national daily ascribed to CPAN.

Describing CPAN’s statement as offensive, condemnable and aimed at discrediting JAMB, a CBT owner, Alexander Ogedengbe, who spoke on behalf of the CBT Centre operators in Lagos, alleged that this particular professed national body had short-changed the system at some point.

Ogedengbe, who alleged further that through investigations, it had been established that the particular person who addressed the media on behalf of CBT Centre owners in Nigeria, during which he made the above declaration, did not own a CBT centre.

“To say that they represent CBT centre owners in Nigeria when they do not have CBT centres is an affront,” he noted.

Speaking further, Ogedengbe said: “It’s unfortunate that this same person together with a group of persons whose centres were delisted by JAMB as a result of technical deficiency of their centres or examination malpractice, will now stand as arbiters to judge JAMB’s competency viz-a-viz UTME examination conduct.

“We hereby state categorically that we, CBT operators in Lagos State, are neither part of the group nor aware of the conference where the statement was made and hence, dissociate ourselves entirely from the publication.

“To be very specific on the issues raised, the biometric of the candidates on the conduct of 2019 UTME examination. We cannot even remember any candidate that didn’t write the examination because of Biometric Failure,” Ogedengbe said, adding: “To our knowledge, the rule of biometric was very clear as stipulated by the JAMB examination board. Any candidate who cannot be captured directly by the biometric scanning machine, JAMB provided alternative for the candidate to write the examination and according to JAMB, such a case, including the details of the candidate should be reported to the board immediately. According to instructions from JAMB, a date will be scheduled for such candidates for the examination.”

On the issue of examination browsers, Ogedengbe said: “According to JAMB, the security of the examination is paramount to them hence they have the right to decide and deploy the type of browser needed to achieve their objective.

“The Board sent information to all the centres to delete the old browsers and download a new browser meant for the 2019 examination. The challenges arose at the centre that didn’t comply with this instruction or where the specifications of the system were not met.

“It is true that the time given to us to deploy this browser was short but the Board explained that the decision for the short notice also has to do with the security of the examination. We accepted their explanations because the security of the examination is also paramount to us in Lagos”, he added.

On examination malpractice, he said: “This act is alien to us in Lagos; we detest it and refuse to be identified with it. This singular objective of conducting the examination free of any kind of examination malpractice has been the major objective of Professor Ishaq Oloyede and his Board since he was appointed the registrar of JAMB and he and his staff have brought sanity to the examination.”