The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has fixed Saturday, March 23, for the conduct of the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) mock exercise.

The board also urged candidates to begin the printing of their mock examination notification slips from Wednesday, March 6.

The board shifted the date of the mock examination because it coincided with the postponed date of the 2019 presidential and National Assembly election.

The 2019 presidential election held on February 23 while the state elections will hold on March 9.

This year, the sale or registration forms to all candidates (UTME/DE) including those outside Nigeria, started January 10 and ended February 21.

Meanwhile, the examination was expected to begin on March 16 and end on March 23 at JAMB’s computer-based test centres nationwide. But the postponement of the general election affected the dates.

Although a top source in the examination body has said the examination date has been shifted from March 16 to April 16 because of the general elections, the board is yet to announce the new date for the examination.

JAMB’s spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin, has urged all candidates to guard all their details pertaining to the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME/DE) Direct Entry.

Mock examination was introduced in 2017 to give candidates the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the conduct of Computer Based Test, particularly, candidates who are not conversant with the use of computers.

Mr Benjamin said the board would not want any candidate to be at a disadvantage position, hence the introduction of mock examination and other processes that would help the candidates during the examination.

”The Board equally introduced the nine (9) keys without a mouse for candidates to use the computer with ease,” he said.

He also said the mock exercise was established to ascertain the readiness of its system and to appraise the candidates’ preparedness for the main examination

”This clarification becomes necessary because of insinuations from some quarters that marks from the mock examination would be added to scores obtained in the main examination, ” he said.

He said the public should note that the mock exam as its name implies, would not be used for any assessment process.

This year’s exercise is the third in the series of mock examinations conducted by the board under the leadership of Ishaq Oloyede.

The Chairman, Governing Board of JAMB, Emmanuel Ndukwe, earlier said the board would not extend its registration deadline.

The board is charged with the responsibility of administering examinations for applicants to Nigerian public and private universities, monotechnics, polytechnics and colleges of education.

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