The Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) will no longer require candidates for its Unified Tertiary Matriculations Examination (UTME) to register for the examination using scratch cards purchased from banks and other vendors. This change in policy was disclosed by the board’s registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede at the Executive Council meeting of the Non-Academic Staff Union held in Abuja on Tuesday.
The registrar attributed the decision to ditch the scratch card to the exploitative behavior of certain card vendors who he said were in the habit of hoarding scratch cards and selling them at a price much higher than was originally designated. Oloyede said that in place of the scratch card system, candidates would be able to generate their own registration PINs using computers or smartphones.
Scratch cards which contain registration codes concealed by a grey panel coating are sold by banks and other vendors to candidates who intend to register for the UTME. JAMB now says that as from 2017 this will no longer be the case.