The House of Representatives on Wednesday mandate its Committees on Tertiary Education and Services as well as Basic Education to investigate the multiple processing and/or administrative fees imposed by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and its accredited agents on Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) candidates.
The House which took the decision following the adoption of a motion moved by Sergius Ogun from Edo State at plenary asked the Committees to report back within four weeks for further legislative action.
Moving the motion, Ogun noted that pursuant to Section 5(1)(a) of JAMB Act, the Board was established to, among other things, control the conduct of matriculation examinations for candidates seeking admission into Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education in Nigeria.
The lawmaker said recently, in addition to the registration fees for the examination, all sorts of processing and/or administrative fees are imposed on JAMB examination candidates.
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He said the House is: “Informed that for every other service, apart from the JAMB Registration provided in relation to the examination, an administrative fee is imposed by JAMB, which does not include the CBT Centre Service Charge collected by JAMB accredited CBT Centers and some of the charges are:
“Application for Transfer, N7,000; change of admission letter with registration number, N5,000; application for correction of data (like date of birth, etc), N2,500; printing of JAMB result slip, N1,000; printing of JAMB admission letter, N1,000; change of institution/course, N2,500; retrieving of JAMB registration number, N1,000.
“Cognizant that by the provisions of the Act, JAMB is an examination conducting body and not primarily a revenue-generating organ of the Federal Government.”
Ogun expressed worry that JAMB Candidates who are not privileged to afford the charges/fees suffer undue hardships and ultimately lose out from taking the examination.
“Also worried that a majority of the candidates dwell in villages, often without CBT accredited Centres and as such, would have to travel long distances and incur additional transportation costs in order to register for the examination or carry out a JAMB related service offered only in a CBT Centre,” he said.
