The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has said that the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) was a huge success.
The board said that myriad of innovations in ICT and other fresh ideas injected by the Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede and management team heralded a change in the way of examination was conducted and other ways of doing things.
He said the most far-reaching innovation was in the area of electronic test transmission in which the board migrated from VSAT technology to the Virtual Private Network (VPN) of telecommunications company, with attendant benefits in security, efficiency and cost savings among others.
It’s Director of Psychometric, Dr. Omokunmi Popoola, told JAMB bulletin, that the success of the exercise was as a result of gainful collaboration with notable assessment agencies, as well as leveraging on experiences in assessment and placement using innovative technologies and global best practices.
Dr. Omokunmi said that it was the application of modern technology that resulted in credible and seamless candidates’ registration, improved test development process and general administration.
He added: “We have more synergy, not only in increased participation of various interest groups in the conduct of examination but increased number of accredited Computer Based Test (CBT) centre resulting in reduced number of examination days.”
He added that repositioning efforts also manifested in areas of streamlined test items which yielded fairer assessment outcome.
Omokunmi maintained that Psychometric Department of JAMB, succeeded in its role of being a watchdog on the quality of test items and examination generally.
He said: “To achieve a fair and valid assessment outcome, test items to be deployed daily or session-by-session have to be equivalent in terms of their difficulty and discrimination parameters among others.”