At least 1,665 fake A’level results were uncovered by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board during the 2023 Direct Entry registration exercise.
According to The PUNCH, JAMB’s Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, made this disclosure when he received the leadership of the National Association of Nigeria Colleges of Education Students in his office on Tuesday in Abuja.
He also noted that the A’level results verification regime was characterised by corruption associated with the system.
“Out of this figure, 397 were from Colleges of Education, 453 were university diplomas, and the rest were other A’level certificates.
“It should be of grave concern if no one respects the certificate one is holding; hence, there is a need to safeguard the integrity of A’level certificates that are used to secure admission through measures that would stand the test of time,” he said.
Oloyede cited that in the past when a candidate applied for DE, the board would simply ask awarding institutions to do the necessary screening and due diligence.
He explained that JAMB was surprised by the discoveries from Bayero University, Kano, where out of the 148 Direct Entry applications to the institution, only six of the certificates forwarded for processing were genuine.
The registrar stated further that it was the discovery of the fraud that prompted the meeting of critical stakeholders, who met to chart ways of combating the menace.
He suggested that an A’level result verification task force should be set up as well as the creation of a common platform for the verification of A’level results and certificates. He said the platform was reliable and user-friendly, as it only takes five minutes to verify any given certificate.
Oloyede equally stated that, to underscore the importance attached to the exercise, the board has put in place a “No verification, No admission” policy.
Listing 15 institutions that have not sufficiently complied with verification requests from the board, the registrar said that the affected institutions, with more than 20 unverified candidates, would have to pre-verify candidates applying with their certificates before they could complete their DE registration process.
The registrar stressed that the modification to the ongoing DE registration is that candidates could go ahead and register while the school verifies them on the back end.
He then said hat the 15 institutions, which were yet to fully comply, would have to pre-verify holders of their certificates before they complete their DE registration.
The NANCES President, Eegunjobi Samuel, earlier laudrf the work the registrar is doing, particularly in terms of restoring sanity, integrity, and credibility in the nation’s examination and admission processes.
He explained tthat the association was at the JAMB nqtional headquarters to present complaints from their members about the seemingly intractable challenges they are having in the ongoing 2024 DE registration as well as ask for more DE registration centres.
