THE Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has explained why it plans to introduce the “Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD)” initiative in the conduct of the annual Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The Board said that the initiative is aimed at reducing the cost of administering the UTME.
Registrar of JAMB, Professor Is-haq Oloyede, had in his address during the 2023 Policy Meeting on Admissions to tertiary institutions in Nigeria, on Saturday last week, disclosed that the Board was moving towards introduction of “Bring Your Device (BYD), that would allow candidates who registered for the UTME to use their devices such as phones, laptops among others, to write the examination.
Head Public Affairs of the Board, Dr Fabian Benjamin, while offering further explanation on the proposed initiative, quoted Oloyede as saying that the initiative will obviate the need for constant replacement of hardware and software occasioned by excessive use.
According to him, the initiative will boost digital literacy, as candidates would have been familiar with their own gadgets before using them to take the UTME. As such, technophobia, one of the leading factors responsible for candidates’ low performance in e-testing, will be curtailed.
“Going forward, JAMB would, in due course, be rolling out BYOD through which candidates would not only be able to use their telephones to take our examination with ease but would also lower capital investment by the Board and its partners as well as be of great help to digital literacy.”
He stated that the board was not unaware of the potential of the initiative to exacerbate digital examination malpractice, and as such disclosed the plans of the board to establish a mobile examination malpractice tribunal to deal with the criminal aspect while institutions would handle that of misconduct.
“We shall, in addition, be partnering with security operatives and other relevant agencies on cybercrimes to deal with the perpetrators. We shall also be engaging these merchants of examination fraud to tap from their knowledge.”