The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced the extension of the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination and Mock examinations following reports of widespread delay in registration exercise.

Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, Register, JAMB made the announcement at a news conference after a two-day meeting with stakeholders in Abuja on Saturday.

Oloyede said that the board had identified challenges in registration and as such proffering solutions to address them.

He said that at the end of the meeting, stakeholders had recommended a two-week extension for registration exercise giving the new date as May 29.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the board had earlier fixed deadline for registration to May 15 but had to extend the date owing to challenges candidates were faced with during registration.

Oloyede added that subsequent to this, the 2021 Mock earlier scheduled for May 20 would now hold on June 3 while the UTME would hold from June 19 to July 3.

“ Field reports showed a huge improvement in the processes. As at today, 1,134,424 candidates have so far registered.

“ Stakeholders undertook on the spot assessment of the CBT centers and discovered lapses which warranted the extension.

“ The challenges among other include candidates non-compliance with registration requirements, using wrong format to generate profile code and using multiple phone numbers, among others,” he said.

Oloyede added that the board would disburse monitoring team to the states of the federation and as well direct CBT centres to stop selling e-pins.

He added that the board would sanction any CBT centres that violates the board’s requirements.

He, therefore, implore the Ministry of Education to help discourage parents to desist from registering underage children to pursue tertiary education.