THE Federal Government is to construct over 774 e-examination centres for the conduct of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB).

Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of JAMB, Professor ‘Dibu Ojerinde, who made this known on Thursday, in Abuja, said President Goodluck Jonathan had given commitment towards ensuring that the Information Communication Technology (ICT) centres were ready before 2016 UTME.

He spoke while he was joined by the Minister of State for Education, Professor Viola Onwuliri, on the monitoring of the ongoing UTME, in Abuja.

Ojerinde noted that a total of 400 certified examination centres were being used for the kick-off of the full-blown Computer Based Test (CBT) this year, adding that the examination would be seamless next year when new centres would have been approved in addition to those to be established by the government.

He admitted that there were few challenges encountered on the first day of the examination in some of the centres across the nation but said that the board had overcome those hiccups as the examination is progressing smoothly in all the centres.

He disclosed that as at Wednesday, the board had successfully processed and released over 895, 000 results of candidates, who sat for the 2015 UTME.

He insisted that the results were released about two hours after examination, directly to the mobile phones supplied to the board by the candidates.

The JAMB boss clarified that some candidates failed to get their results because they gave wrong numbers, while also urging such candidates to check the results online on the board’s website ,using their registration number.

He said the introduction CBT had eliminated the problems of examination malpractices, especially ,impersonation, that characterised the conduct of public examination ..

The minister in her remark, commended JAMB for the introduction of e-testing, which she said ,was in tune with the global trend.

Prof.essor Onwuliri, reiterated the commitment of the Federal Government to open more access to tertiary education, saying government was concerned about the low carrying capacity of the current universities in the country.

She said she was particularly impressed by the enthusiasm of the candidates in embracing CBT, especially, the virtually impaired, who sat comfortably for the examination.

Onwuliri, stressed that the current administration of Jonathan places emphasis on excellence and the introduction of CBT, would further strengthen the quality of education in the country.