By Precious Ireoluwa
Some parents of prospective admission seekers, who wrote the Joint Admission Matriculation Board’s mock examination on Thursday in Ekiti State, grumbled over technical hitches encountered during the exercise.
The aggrieved parents, expressed disgust at the technical failure experienced in the virtually all the designated Computer Test Based Centres across the State, thereby subjecting the applicants to undue pressure.
The brush-up examination that was supposed to take off at 7am in all the JAMB CTB centres like the Bamidele Olumilua University of Education, Science and Technology, Ikere Ekiti, Phonez computer centre, Ijero Centre , the Federal Polytechnic, Ado Ekiti and others, could only start at 2pm due to technical failure from the headquarters of the board.
The participants also complained over inavailability of spaces in all the centres, which makes it difficult for the candidates of the same batch to enter at the same time when the examination began.
Due to these harrowing experiences, parents who brought their wards for batch A examination in all the centres with the thinking that they will leave the venues around 9am, got stick and disappointed, as they were made to wait under the trees till 5pm.
Some of the visibly angered parents, said ; “This was a very disappointing situation and the JAMB must get it corrected to avert recurrence during the main examination in April.
“The essence of this mock examination is for applicants to get cognate experiences and do a self-examination based on the outcomes. But how do you do a fair assessment of the applicants under this tough condition?
“Applicants who came with the intention to start an examination at 7am ended up starting at 2-3pm. This was highly disappointing and could affect their performances.
“The JAMB authority must correct this anomaly before the coming examination . We are also advising that only the centres with enough spaces should be designated for such examination in future”.
A technical officer at BOUESTI ICT centre, who claimed anonymity, blamed the situation on JAMB.
The source said the failure, had started manifesting since Thursday when the federal government’s body could not ascertain the exact software to use in conducting the mock examination.
