No fewer than 501 blind candidates are set to take the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) across eleven centres nationwide.
Chairman of the JAMB Equal Opportunity Group (JEOG), Professor Peter Okebulola, made this known while addressing newsmen in preparation for the 2025 UTME for blind candidates and others with special needs, assigned to JEOG by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB)
Daily Trust reports JAMB Registrar, Prof. Oloyede in 2017, set up JEOG with Professor Okebukola as the chairman to oversee the smooth and orderly conduct of UTME for blind and other special needs candidates.
Okebulola disclosed that JAMB has scheduled the examination to hold from April 28 to April 29, 2025, and involves 20 subjects.
“The candidates take the same test papers as the regular candidates and standards are not lowered in any form,” he added.
Okebulola who is also the President of the Global University Network for Innovation (GUNi-Africa), described Oloyede, as one of the strongest pillars of equal opportunity of access to higher education in Africa.
“As I normally review every year, in the last one week, I have conferred with members of GUNi-Africa on how blind candidates aspiring for higher education in Africa are treated in their countries and all are in agreement that Nigeria, Professor Oloyede, stands clearly out as the best.”
“This year, 84 blind candidates who are SSCE prima facie qualified for admission to institutions of higher learning in Nigeria (that is with at least five O-level credits) will have the cost of their UTME registration refunded on site during the examination.
He added that the other five “goodies” that Oloyede has been showering on the candidates since 2017 are- free hotel accommodation for the blind candidates and their guides, free Braille slate and stylus, customised T-Shirts, free meals through the examination period and transport supplementation for the blind candidates and their guides.
Okebukola, said: “This year and for the second time, JAMB, through JEOG, will implement the bimodal system of UTME administration. This involves Fully-Braille and Fully Read-Aloud. Candidates have a choice of mode.”
“JEOG has been resourced by JAMB to make the experience of the two modes of test administration pleasant for the candidates. We had 348 candidates in 2022, 313 in 2023 and 529 in 2024.”
