The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has denied media reports that it had increased its examination registration fee.
JAMB spokesman, Dr Fabian Benjamin, in a statement on Wednesday insisted that the cost of obtaining its Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) application documents remains N3,500, which has been the cost of its application documents since it was brought down from N5000 in 2018.
He stated that the cost of application documents price has not been increased in spite of the prevailing economic reality in the country which has also affected the cost of the Board’s operations.
He explained that what is being perceived in some quarters as increment in its fees is nothing other than the fallout of its cashless policy through which all fees payable by candidates to CBT centres have been consolidated and are paid along with their application fees to prevent their wanton exploitation by unscrupulous centre owners.
“These fees are in turn remitted to partnering centres on a weekly basis. For instance, candidates are expected to pay N700 for registration,N1,500 as examination fees and N1,500 for the optional Mock-UTME at privately – owned centres,” he added.
Benjamin further said the registration fee of N700, which is to be paid to CBT centres by candidates, is now to be collected by the Board along with N1,500, which is the cost for sitting the main UTME, and N1,500 as the cost of the optional mock-UTME etc are to be collected by the Board on behalf of the CBT centres.
He assured that the Board would do all within its powers to ensure that candidates are not overburdened in any way.
” The Board wishes to assure the general public that the Board had been doing all within its powers to ensure that candidates are not overburdened in anyway.
”One of these measures is to deliberately keep cost low hence its decision to make available its Use of English reading text free of charge through a QR code to ensure that the increase in cost of production is not passed to candidates.
“Therefore, all UTME candidates would access the reading text free of charge through multiple channels, which include their profiles, e-mail address, notification slip and the Board’s website”, he stated.
