The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says no fewer than 947,000 candidates have so far sat for the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) within the last two days.

The JAMB spokesman, Dr Fabian Benjamin, made this known after monitoring the ongoing UTME alongside the JAMB Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, and others in Abuja on Thursday, April 26.

Benjamin said about 60,000 candidates
have encountered technical issues within the last two days and were being rescheduled to sit for the exam.

He stated that the JAMB officials were out to ensue everyone who registered for the exam have the opportunity to take part in the exercise.

He said: “This is the best exam we have had over a period of time, but I know many will like to contest that because of what happened on Tuesday, but I know if you have been in the system and be following our exams, you will know that the first day is always turbulent, as we progress we stabilise and continue the exercise.

READ ALSO: 2023 UTME: NSCDC arrests 6 for exam malpractice in Anambra

“And one assurance we want to give Nigerians, is that every candidate that has registered for this examination, he or she will certainly be given the opportunity to take the examination.

“On the first day, there were candidates who were unable to sit for the examination because of technical issues and we have rescheduled those candidates, some of them are taking the exam as we speak and some will also take tomorrow.

“We urge candidates particularly those who could not sit for yesterday’s exercise to continue to check their profile and print their slip as we reschedule them for the examination.

“In the last two days, excluding today, we have examined 947, 000 candidates. Out of the 947,000 candidates we had issues with about 60,000 candidates and these candidates are being rescheduled (for the exam).

“If you are to give a pass mark, out of 900,000, you had issue with 60,000, it is a fair share, but that is not to say even if it is one candidate that is unable to sit for the exam we are not concerned,” Fabian stated.

Asked on when the results of the examination would be released, the JAMB spokesperson said the management would release the first batch of the results soon.

Over 1.5 million registered for the 2023 UTME which commenced on April 25 and expected to end on May 3, 2023.

The Star