TheCable

Adamu Adamu, the minister of education, says he is worried about the computer illiterates sitting for the computer-based test (CBT) of the unified tertiary matriculation examination (UTME).

Adamu expressed his worries on Tuesday while monitoring the 2016 UTME at the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB)’s model CBT centre at Kogo, Bwari, in the FCT.

Adamu, however, said he is impressed with the conduct of the examination at the centre.

“The children seemed to be very happy and comfortable with what they are doing; but my question is what do you do with many who are not computer literate?

“I have sympathy for candidates who are not computer-literate and there are many of them. I think we should combine CBT and paper examination for sometime but definitely, the future is for computer.”

Dibu Ojerinde, JAMB’s registrar, said all factors were considered before the board migrated fully from Paper-Based Test to CBT.

He said that the federal government had mandated the National Commission for Communications (NCC) to set up least four CBT centres every year.

“The first four are on and very soon more will be on,”he said.

“We have made improvement from that of last year; for instance, we now have calculator on the screen. Over 200,000 results have been released since the examination started on Feb. 27”.

Ojerinde cited security challenges, high cost of producing writing materials for PPT, high cost of transporting materials and curbing examining examination malpractices as some of the reasons behind the adoption of CBT.

A candidate told NAN that the CBT is easy, as it only entails clicking on the right answers.

He praised the idea, saying it reduces the stress of paper writing while also encouraging future candidates to upgrade their computer skills.

The candidate said that any person with basic computer knowledge could write the exam without much difficulty.