Parents lament as candidates skip UTME in Cross River over distant CBT centres

Some students in Cross River have cited “poor organisation” as a hindrance to their participation in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

NAN reports that some parents in the state also weighed in on the matter, speaking in separate interviews in Calabar on Monday.

They lamented the difficulties they had to go through just to ensure that they and their wards participated in the examination.

The 2025 UTME was scheduled to be held from Friday, April 25, to Monday, May 5, and is a computer-based test (CBT).

A parent, Jonas Achi, said the whole process of UTME has been difficult for his family from the registration to writing the examination.

“During the registration at the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) Secondary School, many of us parents had to sleep over at the centre to ensure that our children were registered,” he said.

“The crowd was so much. To make matters worse, as we speak, many of the children were posted to Akwa Ibom from Cross River for their examination, others to local governments like Obudu, which can take up to eight hours of travelling from Calabar.

“Another challenge is fixing the examination by 6.30 a.m., how does JAMB expect the candidates to make it to the centre by such time to write their examination? It is highly insensitive.”

Johnson Etim, a parent, said he registered his daughter at the University of Calabar Library registration centre after queuing for a week at FAAN Secondary School.

Etim added that the office of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in Calabar could not register his ward after many days he tried to register his daughter.

“I can’t just understand why the process is now very difficult, for some days, we were told that there was no network for them to carry out the registrations,” he said.

“After going through the pains of registering my daughter, she was still posted to Akamkpa LGA which is a two to three hours journey from Calabar without minding that many of these children are just teenagers.

“My neighbour’s son was posted to Ikom, which is a four to five-hour journey from Calabar for the same examination. This is a place the boy had never been to before.”

Etim added that JAMB was stressing parents unnecessarily because many now had to leave Calabar as early as 5 am with their wards to travel for the examination.

He said that some parents and their wards had to go a day before the exam and lodge in a hotel, which was an extra cost.

In Calabar, some students complain that they could not write the examination because they were given centres that were too far away.

Joseph Adagi, a 16-year-old candidate, said he was posted to Ikot Ekpene in Akwa Ibom to write his exam in the early hours of the morning.

Adagi said he could not travel because he had no one in Akwa Ibom to stay with and could not afford lodging in a hotel a day before the exam.

Other UTME candidates had with them medical reports, claiming they were unwell on the day they were scheduled to write their examination and asking for a rescheduling to a closer centre in Calabar.

Earlier, Peter Obi, a 2023 presidential candidate, issued a scathing criticism describing JAMB’s 2025 UTME scheduling as reckless.

The board had offered a cash reward for credible evidence of candidates being posted outside their chosen examination town.