The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says it has so far registered over 1.9 million prospective candidates for its 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), with a few hours to the end of the exercise.

Dr Fabian Benjamin, the board’s head of Media and Information, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday, in Lagos.

This year’s registration for the examination commenced on Monday, Jan. 13 and will be concluded on Feb. 17.

“Let me state clearly here that there will be no extension for the registration of candidates for both the UTME and the direct entry (DE) as being speculated in some quarters”.

“Registration for this year’s examination ends by 12 midnight of Feb. 17, and that will be it for this year. I like to say that the board is pleased with the way the exercise has gone so far and with this, we have registered over 1.9 million candidates. We have never recorded such a number before”.

“Without doubt, this figure is the highest that the board has ever recorded in the history of its examination. We are equally happy as a board that we keep improving everyday in a bid to ensure effective management of our operations,” he stated.

Speaking further, Benjamin noted that arrangements had also been concluded for the conduct of a hitch-free mock examination, scheduled for Feb. 18 nationwide.

According to him, a total of 669 out of the 747 centres across the country will be used for the conduct of the computer-based test (CBT).

“One of the purposes of the mock examination is to test-run the facilities in these centres. Anyone of them that falls short of standard will automatically be delisted,” he said.

He called for the support and cooperation of stakeholders so as to collectively deliver on the public responsibility.

“On our part, our members of staff have been making sacrifices that could even involve their lives in a bid to ensure quality service delivery,” he assured. (NAN)