The Registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof Ishaq Oloyede, has announced that no fewer than 1.94 million candidates sat for the 2024 examinations in the country.

Oloyede made this known on Wednesday in Kaduna while inspecting Computer Based Test (CBT) centres in the state amidst the ongoing JAMB examinations. He added that at the end of the examination today, less than 100,000 candidates would remain in Lagos, Benue, and other states in the country.

Oloyede explained that the pace at which JAMB cleared candidates and captured biometrics made the exercise faster, which was part of JAMB’s re-engineering process towards ensuring a hitch-free exercise.

“Even today, I have seen something which we need to improve on, but most importantly, we have done so many things in the background to make the exercise faster, more efficient and better. We have increased the level of automation,” he said.

The Registrar frowned at examination cheaters, saying, “It does not pay”. He said that most of the problems JAMB faced were impersonation, with most of the cases being candidates with double National Identification Number (NIN), adding that JAMB would take up the issue with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).

“The important thing is that we are ahead of the impersonators; we have arrested a father writing examinations for his son; the kind of parenting in this generation is uncalled for; I wonder what the father will tell the son if they are locked up in the same cell.

“We now have the facilities to check all sorts of impersonation and other malpractices,” he said.

The Registrar, however, thanked parents for their support, recalling that they were seen loitering around examination centres disturbing in previous years.

“There is no report this year of parents intruding, except one state. In that state, they felt that since the first session had failed, their children should not continue with the second or other sessions.

“Out of the country’s 775 centres, those who failed were not up to 20, and only one failed. Less than 30 of the centres failed at the first session because of ill preparation.

“When such things happen, the candidates should stay aside for the next session to move because questions are designed individually for a candidate,” he said.