By David Torough, Abuja

Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) yesterday revealed that two suspects, a father and his son, were arrested for their alleged involvement in impersonation during the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

This was just as the board added that no fewer than 1.

The JAMB Registrar, Prof.

Recall that JAMB had warned parents to stay far away from the exam centres during the exercise.

There was also a government directive that admission to tertiary institutions should not be given to candidates less than 18 years old.

The Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman decried the activities of parents who were pressuring their underage children to get admission into tertiary institutions.

The minister said that the 18-year benchmark is in line with the 6-3-3-4 system of education.

He said, “The minimum age of entry into the university is 18, but we have seen students who are 15, 16 years going in for the entrance examination.

“Parents should be encouraged not to push their wards too much. Mostly, it is the pressure of parents that is causing this.

“We are going to look at this development because the candidates are too young to understand what the whole university education is all about.”

The JAMB boss however refrained from disclosing the identities of the parent and child, as well as the location of the reported malpractice.

“For those who engage in cheating, they should know that it does not pay.

“The technology is helping us to check that.

“Across the country, most of the problems we have is impersonation. For instance, now, we say we have NIN, we now have cases of people with two NINs and therefore that has defeated the purpose of identity verification.

“We are going to take that up with NIMC that there are people who have two NINs.

“We have a case of a father impersonating his son, writing an examination for the son and I wonder, are you not destroying your son’s future?

“Of course, two of them are now in custody. I can’t understand what the father will now tell his son when they are both locked up in the same cell.

“This definitely happened not in Kaduna, but I don’t want to disclose the state.

“So, it is largely a case of impersonation, but we are ahead of them. We are just picking them up like chickens now because the facilities are there for us to see what they are doing and to pick them up,” he said.

Oloyede noted that at the end of the examination yesterday, there would be less than 100,000 candidates remaining in Lagos, Benue and other states in the country.

He added that JAMB’s improved technology made the exercise smoother and faster.

“Today, I have seen something which we need to improve on, but most importantly, we have done so many things in the background to make the exercise faster, more efficient and better. We have increased the level of automation.

“This year, 1.94 million candidates are taking UTME. By the end of today [yesterday], we would have less than 100,000 remaining.

“By the end of today, what will be remaining will be Lagos, Makurdi and a few other places in the country,” he added.

The JAMB Registrar also commended parents for their behaviour during the conduct of the 2024 UTME exercise, noting that there was no parent intrusion, unlike the previous year when some parents flocked to the various computer-based centres during the exams.

“There is no report this year of parents intruding, except in one state. In that state, they felt that since the first session failed, their children should not continue with the second or other sessions,” he added.

Oloyede informed those who have missed the exam, for reasons not caused by the examination body, to forget about it, saying that JAMB cannot spend tens of millions of the nation’s resources to reorganise a session for a few candidates who missed the exams due to their personal recklessness.

“Most of those candidates who missed the UTME are students from hostels who were made to register through schools because of the money the schools wanted to collect from the parents in the name of JAMB.

“They would now put 30 students on one bus. They will now be dropping them off in different locations. By the time they get to the last student’s centre, he is already late for the exam.

“You will now see the principal writing to me. What business do I have with a school?” he asked.