The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has said it would not be selling registration forms for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) until January 2019.

The spokesperson of the board, Fabian Benjamin, disclosed this Tuesday night.

He said the board had dropped the idea of starting the sale of the forms in December following the federal government’s reduction in the registration fee, with effect from January 2019.

According to Mr Benjamin, candidates have just six weeks to complete their registration once it opens in January.

“The attention of the board has been drawn to information going round in some social media that JAMB has already begun the sale of forms for UTME but we are not commencing sale of the forms until January 2019, and the window period will be for six weeks,” he said.

He urged prospective candidates to note this period in order not to fall prey to fraudsters.

Mr Benjamin said the board would make adequate publicity toward the sale of the UTME forms.

According to him, the board would comply with the directive on reduction of the registration cost.

The federal government, on November 28, approved the reduction of the fee from N5, 000 to N3, 500, ahead of the 2019 UTME, at the Federal Executive Council meeting (FEC).

FEC also reduced the cost of registration for the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination charged by the National Examination Council (NECO) from N11,350 to N9,850 and that of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) from N5,500 to N4,000.

Meanwhile, the minister of education, Adamu Adamu, said the reduction would take effect from January 2019.

The Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) is a Nigerian entrance examination board for tertiary-level institutions. The board conducts entrance examinations for prospective undergraduates into Nigerian higher institutions.