JAMB resumes DE registration, sets guidelines against certificate forgery

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has resumed the 2023 Direct Entry (DE) registration.

At a briefing in Abuja on Monday, Is-haq Oloyede, JAMB registrar, said the registration will end on April 28.

The board had suspended the registration in February — a few hours after the exercise commenced.

Speaking at the briefing, the JAMB registrar said the suspension was informed by the “high level of forgery of A Level certificates” required for the registration.

“You will recall that the board commenced the 2023 direct entry registration on Monday, 20th February, 2023, but had to immediately suspend it following the discovery of the plethora of devices and machinations to circumvent and compromise the standard of A ‘level qualifications required from DE candidates,” he said.

“Recall that recent joint operations of the Federal Ministry of Education and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on DE qualifications brought to light some of these unsavoury and nefarious activities.

“Bayero University, Kano (BUK) has also consistently brought to the fore the high rate of forgery of A’Level qualifications for DE. For instance, it was discovered that, in previous years, some candidates used unacceptable and forged A’ level certificates/qualifications to register for Direct Entry and eventually got admitted. For example, out 148 candidates verified by BUK, only 6 were found to be genuine. By implication 142 of the results were forged.

“The board, concerned stakeholders and institutions are working assiduously to detect such and the ones already found, are being dealt with according to the provisions of the law.”

Oloyede said the board has introduced new guidelines to checkmate forgery of results as registration resumes.

“In order to further checkmate the anomaly and to also prevent recurrence of such irregularity, the Board has decided that the 2023 DE registrations will not only be restricted to JAMB (Professional Test Centres (PTCs) but will also be done under strict supervision,” he said.

“The board has provided additional guidelines to all DE registration outlets (JAMB-owned centres), officers of the board and candidates on the 2023 Direct Entry registration exercise: –

“At the point of registration, all candidates must fill in: registration/matriculation Number of the previous school attended where the qualification was obtained; Subject(s) of qualification; Awarding Institution; Institution actually attended.”

The JAMB registrar said the board would only accept 13 qualifications/certificates for this year’s DE registration which include a first degree, university diploma, Higher National Diploma (HND), Ordinary National Diploma /National Diploma (OND/ND), and Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE).

Others are Interim Joint Matriculation Board (IJMB) A’ Level, Joint Universities Preliminary Examination Board (JUPEB) A’ Level, NABTEB Advanced National Business Certificate (ANBC), NABTEB Advanced National Technical Certificate (ANTC), NABTEB GCE-A’ Level (2015 – 2021), Higher Islamic Studies Certificate (HIS) by NBAIS, International Baccalaureate (IBN) and the National Registered Nurse /National Registered Midwife (NRN/NRM).

Oloyede said the 127 candidates who registered for the 2023 DE before the exercise was suspended would be requested to return to the registration centres and update their applications.