The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board on Saturday urged the public to disregard the impression that the media trial of a teacher and some students of Baptist Girls Academy was planned by the board.
The board’s position was contained in a statement by its Head of Public Affairs and Protocols, Dr Fabian Benjamin, titled ‘Re: Prof Oloyede’s media trial of Baptist Girls Academy: The true story.’
Benjamin explained that the board’s Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, was on a scheduled inspection of the ongoing 2021 UTME registration exercise in the South-West to assess the performance of the exercise across geopolitical zones.
He added that the registrar was answering questions from journalists who drew his attention to the students from Baptist Girls Academy who after being asked said they paid N8,000 as against the approved N4,700 for the examination.
According to the statement, Oloyode met with their teacher who denied that the student paid higher than the stipulated fees but the students insisted.
The statement further explained that the Registrar knowing that there are administrative channels of addressing such abnormalities called on the most senior journalist at the interview session not to publish the encounter as it should be considered an off-record incident and he was given an assurance by all the reporters through their senior colleague.
The statement read, “The attention of the board has been drawn to some misconceptions making the rounds on the encounter of the Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, with a group of students, including some from the Baptist Girls Academy, Lagos.
“The board wishes to correct the erroneous impression that Baptist Girls Academy was specifically targeted by the board during the Registrar’s inspection tour.
“The Registrar was on a scheduled inspection of the ongoing 2021 UTME registration exercise in the South-West. As in the tradition of all Board’s Chief Executives, he came to assess the performance of the exercise across the geopolitical zones.
“On getting to Lagos, he held a press conference after which he proceeded to JKK Computer-Based Test Centre, one of the Board’s approved UTME Registration centres to assess the registration there.
“He was accompanied on the visit by over 30 representatives of the leading media houses in the country. At JKK CBT centre, he had an interview session during which one of the journalists sought to know why some centres and perhaps schools were charging higher fees than the prescribed fee by the Board. Another wanted to know what the Board was doing to avoid the prevailing mismatch of candidates data. That is the essential details of one candidate being transferred to another.”
According to the statement, the Registrar, in his response, explained that the issue of mismatched data occurred as a result of group registration by the authorities of some elite schools who collect huge sums of money from parents in the name of helping them to facilitate their wards’ registration.
On the collection of higher fees above the prescribed fee, the statement quoted the Registrar as saying that he was not aware of any large-scale extortion going on anywhere other than the exception of some elite secondary schools who are in the habit of illegitimately collecting money in the name of the Board.
The statement added, “The Board would want to dissuade the public from misinterpreting this happenstance. It should be noted that the Board had, on some occasions, had cause to also sanction faith-based schools located in the Northern part of the country with no eyebrows raised from any quarter.
“The Board wishes to reiterate that it had always been its core policy to sanction any school that collects a dime above the approved UTME fee particularly when such exercise are linked to the Board’s hard-earned name and integrity. It does so without any fear or favour of any religious or ethnic group.”
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