The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has cautioned parents and guardians against enrolling minors in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination following an alleged privacy breach by a centre.
The warning was contained in a statement by the Board’s spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin on Wednesday, March 13, in Abuja.
The board threatened to de-register any centre that allows a parent to get near to where candidates are being screened.
The Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, gave the warning while reacting to a suit filed by one Mrs. Ifeanyi Eke against the Board over inappropriate text messages sent to her 15-year-old daughter during her registration.
Eke had filed a N100 million suit against JAMB and three others before the Federal High Court in Lagos over alleged unsolicited and inappropriate text messages sent to her 15-year-old daughter.
While reacting to the incident, Oloyede said the board was ready to meet with the woman, maintaining that the sender of the message was not the board’s staff.
The registrar said since the incident happened, JAMB reported it to security agencies to take appropriate action, but the woman did not care, suing for N100 million at the expense of the child.
Prof. Oloyede said: “The person is not our staff, he is not even a staff member of the centre, he is a co-student. He is just like a candidate, an undergraduate in one of the universities
“And talking about our data, nobody has access to our data. The person got the information from the phone of the underage girl.
“How did your girl of 15 years get ready for university now? If she is law-abiding, as she claimed,. The law today is that you must spend six years before primary school, six years in primary school, and six years in secondary school. By that time, you are 18.
“But when you reduce three years, you must cut corners to make a 15-year-old child ready for university education. We will meet her in court, it is for the court to decide whether she deserves that money.”
Oloyede maintained that the person got the telephone number of the victim at the centre because they had a form to fill out, saying that it had dealt appropriately with the centre, the reason being that it shouldn’t have allowed unauthorised persons on the premises.
He said: “Even if the centres do not have access to our database, the person must have collected the number while interacting with her at the centre
“We dealt with the centre on negligence, for allowing unauthorised persons to have access to where these candidates were. And we are urging parents to allow their children to mature before registering for UTME.
“We are now saying that any centre that allows a parent to get near to where the candidates are being screened, that centre will be deleted.
“Secondly, we have instructed the centres to stop identifying the parents of the candidates and we will take appropriate action against the candidates. Parents cannot destroy the career of their children because of their emotions and indiscipline.”
