By Baron Ike
The 2019 post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka may suffer a major setback as the authorities are being asked to clear the debt they incurred during the 2018 exercise.
Supervisors of the post-UMTE last year are believed to be owed amount running into millions and have told the University leadership they will not take part in this year’s examination until they are paid what they were promised last year.
Most of the invigilators were from the University community.
The new Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Prof. Charles Igwe, was said to have appealed to the said invigilators to see reasons with him due to the timetable of the institution and the deadline set by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for the post-UMTE to be conducted so as to conclude the 2019 admission process.
Consequently, it was gathered during the week that the earliest the UNN can conduct the exercise is August.
“ The earliest the school can hold that exercise is August because the invigilators for the same exercise last year have not been paid and they are threatening not to take part in conducting the same examination this year except they are paid,” one of the dons told Armadanews.
According to the professor, the University may consider conducting the post-UMTE next month depending on when other relevant information required by the prospective students are uploaded on the school’s website for them to respond to. “For now, there is no information on admission at UNN,” the senior don told this medium.
The UNN is among the institutions that lost time last year due to industrial action called by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
Students of the university are just returning to school for their second semester when many of the private universities are already thinking of returning to school for the 2019/2020 academic year.
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board released the results of 1, 792, 719 candidates who wrote the 2019 UTME in May.
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede said 15-year-old boy, Ekele Franklin from Imo State, is the overall best candidate in the 2019 UTME. Franklin scored 347. He was trailed by Emmanuel Chidebube, a 16-year-old boy from Abia State who came second with a score of 346, while Isaac Olamide, a 17-year-old from Osun came third with 345.
In all 2,906 candidates scored over 300 as against 4,683 in 2018.
According to Oloyede, 57,579 candidates scored between 250 and 299 as against 64,120 in the 2018 results.
Prof. Oloyede said 1, 826, 839 candidates sat for the UTME of the 1,886,508 candidates that registered for the examination which was conducted in 698 computer based test (CBT) centres nationwide from April 11 – 18.
He said: “Today, we are releasing the results of 1,792,719 candidates. Some 34,120 results are being withheld including the results of 15,145 candidates being further clarified as identical twins and siblings.”