Ishaq Oloyede, the immediate past registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), says his “most painful” experience at the board was seeing parents organising examination malpractice for their children and wards.
Oloyede spoke on Sunday during the THISDAY live programme on Arise Television.
On Friday, Oloyede handed over the affairs of JAMB to Segun Aina, the new registrar, after a decade at the helm of the board.
In May, President Bola Tinubu appointed Aina, a professor of computer engineering at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, to succeed Oloyede as JAMB’s sixth registrar.
Oloyede was first appointed JAMB registrar on August 9, 2016, by the late former President Muhammadu Buhari and was reappointed for a second term in August 2021.
Reflecting on his time at JAMB, Oloyede said he often becomes emotional whenever he sees parents planning and facilitating examination malpractice for their children and wards.
The former JAMB registrar said he often wonders why parents would undermine their children’ future by engaging in practices.
“The most painful period of my experience in JAMB has to do with the level of involvement of parents in the organisation of examination malpractice,” he said.
“They are introducing their wards and children to the world of crime. I think most of the candidates are not problematic. They are not the problem. The problem is the parents.
“Every time I was confronted with the reality of what parents are doing, most of the time, I became very emotional about it.
“Most of the time, I feel that how on earth will people hate themselves and their futures to this level. Even if you have deficiency, you won’t want to pass the deficiency to the next generation.”
“For me, it was a fine period (referring to his administration in JAMB. The only lowest period was when I confronted parents over involvement in the planning and introduction of their children and wards into crime (examination malpractice).”
Oloyede said he believes his successor will be better than him at leveraging technology to improve the conduct of unified tertiary matriculation examination (UTME).
He said Aina’s background and expertise in computer engineering would enable him to make greater use of technology at JAMB.