By Omos Oyinbode, Asaba
She walked into the premises of the Delta Printing and Publishing Company Limited (DPPCL) in Asaba, where some journalists were gathered. Seeing her facial appearance, it was obvious that she was dejected and extremely worried. When she was directed by the company receptionists to see journalists from the different media to tell her story, one could tell from a distance that she actually had some worries bothering her little mind. The worries were so obvious that it has, within the past 24 hours or so, overshadowed her beauty as she was, ordinarily, a beauty queen to behold.
Behind her was a middle aged man whom our correspondent later learnt is a driver to one of her uncles who, incidentally instructed that the public through the instrumentality of the media should hear what had robbed the joy of the 16 year old former student of Ubogo Secondary School, in a remote community in Delta State.
When she finally settled down to speak with journalists who were on ground to hear her story, she could hardly speak as she battled hard to restrain the flood of tears that had already gathered in her eye-socket that was ostensibly brimming like a coal of fire as they were red and swollen, an indication that she may have been crying before stumbling into the hands of mediamen in Asaba, the Delta State capital.
When she finally gathered momentum to speak, she said, “my name is Esther Akin, I am 16 years old from Osun state, but resident in Warri, Delta State. I was a student of Ubogo Secondary School, Ubogo. I registered for the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) that is currently going on across the country using the Computer Based Test (CBT). For the exam, I applied for Nursing where I registered Mathematics, English Language, Chemistry and Biology as the required subjects for the proposed course I intend to study.
“Unfortunately, JAMB, rather than test me on the subjects I registered for, deliberately removed Mathematic from the subjects and included Physics, which I barely have good knowledge of and this is the beginning of my woes”.
Continuing, Miss Akin who said she did her CBT on Wednesday, March 18, 2015, at the JAMB Office in Asaba, explained that despite forcing her to take Physics which, according to her, she was not prepared for, JAMB later compounded her woes as about one hour 15 minutes into the three hour examination, the computer she was using developed a technical fault as it abruptly shut down on its own. She said when the machine came up few minutes later, she was required to log in her registration number which she did, but that the machine failed to register her, as the communication from the device indicated that the number had already been used.
Following the confusion that ensued, Miss Akin said that she called the attention of one of the supervisors on duty to help out but unfortunately she was rebuffed as she said the instructor advised her to leave the examination hall as there was nothing that could be done at that particular time to salvage the situation.
“With what happened that day, considering the fact that I only attempted two and half of the subjects before the unfortunate incident, it is obvious that JAMB has advertently cut short my chances of gaining admission into higher institution this year, especially so when I was tested on one of the subjects that I was not prepared for”, Miss Akin said while struggling with tears.
She has therefore called on the Management of UTME to score her on the three subjects that she registered for (English Language, Chemistry and Biology) or on the alternative; the management of the examination body should fix a later date for her to be tested on Mathematics she earlier registered for.
Also, the candidate is asking the examination body to do the same thing for other candidate who may have been in the same category with her, just as she observed that many students had similar challenges in her centre and which may likely be a national challenge.
“From what has happened, it a clear indication that JAMB is not prepared for the CBT, because, most of their centres lack good invigilators and they do not give students attention. The arrangement for the examination is poor and they lack sufficient power supply to run the examination”, Akin said.
While calling for revert to the former biro and paper type of examination, Miss Akin said that most of the candidates were confused; not knowing what to do as, according to her, many do not have knowledge of the working of computers, just as she said that the exam which was billed to start 1:30 pm on that fateful day, did not start until at about 5:50 pm.
