Forty-four blind candidates have sat for 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in Bauchi Centre held at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) Yelwa Campus under the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
The candidates were drawn from the four states of the Northeast zone namely Bauchi, Borno, Gombe and Yobe for the exercise on Monday.
JAMB, a body responsible for conducting examinations for entry into tertiary institutions in Nigeria, has introduced the blind UTME programme to give people with special needs equal opportunity to achieve their dreams.
Speaking with journalists on the exercise the UTME Blind Bauchi Centre Coordinator, Professor Salisu Shehu called on the Bauchi State government to create awareness among people with disabilities to enable them access services of the board.
Professor Shehu observed that with adequate awareness especially to parents of disabled persons, more candidates would be motivated to sit for the JAMB examinations.
He said, “I’m appealing to the Bauchi State Government to create awareness so that many parents will get to know this kind of arrangement JAMB has put in place to encourage and motivate them, so that we get more candidates in future”.
The coordinator also called on candidates sitting for the examinations to conduct themselves well, abide by the rules and regulations, and avoid being emotional when they come to sit for the examination, saying they should feel motivated and less emotional so that they can write the exams very well.
Professor Shehu, said that almost half of the 44 candidates sitting for the JAMB examination are from Bauchi, described the challenges of the exercise as multi-faceted, as one can contact a candidate through phone for about five times only to find that it was switched-off.
Other challenges, according to the coordinator, included, screening the candidates, getting personnel to handle the exercise, getting them ready and seated in exam hall, getting resource persons (prottors) who can read the questions, feeding arrangement, conveyance of the candidates from hotel to exams centre for three days’ period of the exercise, transport supplement back to their respective states, among others.
Also speaking when he visited the centre to see the arrangements, the Bauchi State commissioner for information and communication, Hon. Usman Dan Yuraki, said that his visit is in tandem with the feeling of Governor Bala Mohammed who, he argued, has serious concerns for people living with disabilities.
Dan Turaki explained that it is a responsibility binding on the governor and his cabinet members to interact with such a group of disabled persons, share love with them, show them the desired concern, and appreciate the JAMB equal opportunity group for having done so much in uplifting the standard of their lives.
“Anybody coming here to see what is being done will appreciate the fact that the Federal Government, led by Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is doing well with people living with disabilities. When we talk in retrospect, it has never been like this, but today we are seeing how they are being taken care of very well, and to the effect that they are having a sense of belonging in the society”,
Dan Turaki said. On her part one of the members of JAMB Equal opportunity group, Professor Hadiza Isah Bazza from University of Maiduguri asked the candidates to use the opportunity given to them to build their educational career.
