The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on Thursday announced that it will begin  registration for 2019/ 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in December as scheduled.

The Head of Media of the Board, Dr Fabian Benjamin, announced this while addressing newsmen during the conduct of promotion exercise for the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), at the board’s Computer Based Test (CBT) Centre in Abuja.

According to Benjamin, no specific date has been fixed for the commencement of the registration yet.

He, however, said that plans were underway to do so as soon as possible as the board was initially waiting for the pronouncement of the presidency on the reduction of the examinations fee, which was formally announced on Wednesday.

Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved the downward review of the examination registration fees from N5,000 to N3,500 effective from January 2019.

The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, announced this after the meeting.

Benjamin said it was commendable what the President had done as he was someone, who had always had the interest of the masses at heart and would prove to ensure that no Nigerian was deprived of tertiary education.

” The president has overtime, expressed concern that the charges were high.

” Our consistent remittance has proven that something could actually be done and even if charges are reduced, examinations can still be conducted with no service suffering any issue of funding.

” The president has taken this bold step, we will see what happens after this reduction and if need be for further reduction, Mr President will do so in no distant time because he has concerns for the ordinary Nigerian on the streets. ”

Benjamin reiterated the board’s readiness to continuously give the general public the desired impact to further enhance institutions through conducting transparent and credible examinations at its CBT centres, nationwide.

He explained that organisations and agencies chose to conduct their exercises at JAMB because of the trust and confidence they had for the board to deliver.

” Before each examinations, we charge the candidates to conduct themselves in the best way because once you breach the examination’s code of conduct, you will be immediately sent out of the hall.

” We are very firm, determined and irrespective of whoever is involved, our benchmark is that you must behave accordingly as expected of you,” he said.

ACG Olapolu Fatade, Human Resource Department of the NCS, who also spoke to newsmen, explained that the promotion for 10, 498 officers cut across officers of different ranks across the country.

According to Fatade, the agency chose to conduct the exercise in JAMB CBT centres because of its credibility and timely results.

He further explained that questions for the officers were based on tariffs, enrollment, ICT, Administration as well as export procedure and exercise, which were the core functions of the departments.

He said that the officers, if promoted, would be expected to put more efforts in their duties while giving younger officers an opportunity to emulate them in hard work and sincerity.