It is no longer news that the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) had released the results of the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). But the figures show some discrepancies.
JAMB had delayed the release of results of the 2019 UTME for close to a month saying that it was conducting some checks to maintain the credibility of the exams in the face of multiple registration and other malpractices. It finally announced the release of ready results on Saturday, 11th May.
While addressing journalists, the Board’s Registrar, Ishaq Oloyede declared that 1,886,508 candidates registered.
Of the figure, 59,667 candidates were absent. This means that 1,826,839 sat for the UTME, going by the statement of the University of Ilorin professor.
He said 1,792,719 results were released while 34,120 results were withheld, including the results of 15,145 candidates “identified by identical twins for further clarification.”
The figure does not include those of Direct Entry(DE) candidates put at 103,173.
The UTME result discrepancies
EduCeleb.com recalls that in April, JAMB had declared that 1,886,238 registered and were meant to sit for the 2019 UTME.
This was in its bulletin released on 15th April this year. The figure excludes the above stated DE figures. It is not however clear whether the 389 physically challenged candidates also mentioned were included in the sum.
This leaves a difference of 270 candidates (without adding the physically challenged) between what was declared last month and what is being declared as the number of registered candidates, 1,886,508.
During the press briefing on Saturday, Professor Oloyede gave a breakdown of how candidates performed in the 2019 UTME, which EduCeleb.com summed up to cover 1,793,751 candidates.
He specifically said that 2,906 of them scored over 300 while 57,579 candidates scored between 250 and 299. Also, 366,757 candidates scored between 200 and 249 just as 361,718 candidates scored between 180 and 199.
Then, 494,484 scored between 160 and 179 while 410,844 candidates scored between 140 and 159. Also, 99,463 scored between 100 and 139.
Whereas, he earlier stated that the results of only 1,792,719 candidates were released. Going by this, we have a difference of 1,032 between the candidates’ performance figures and those of the released results.
Figures misread?
When contacted to clarify on the UTME result discrepancies, Oloyede suggested that this reporter was misreading the figures.
“Please, reread my press statement and you will discover (that) you were misreading the text,” he replied in a text message.
He later clarified that “foreign candidates” account for the 270 increase declared within less than a month when the exams held and when results were declared admitting that those were not captured in the April publication.
The JAMB boss however kept mum on the identity of the 1,032 candidates whose results were analysed in the performance figures but were not covered in the number of released results.
He rather said that those not captured in the candidates’ performance figures were those who scored below 100.
