The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has said that all blind candidates for the 2016 UTME would practice with the Braillenote Apex machine at their respective centres a day before the main examination.

Mr Omokunmi Popoola, the Director of the Psychometrics Department of the board, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Lagos.

According to him, this is to reduce anxiety in the special candidates and to enable them to get familiar with the functionality of the machines.
“We also did this same thing during the 2015 edition of the examination on the Computer Based Test (CBT) platform.

“JAMB has concluded arrangements for the examination in general and all the accredited centres and machines are in good condition.
“The blind candidates are good to go, judging from our observations and their cooperation during the recent one-day sensitisation workshop conducted in various centres across the six geopolitical zones in the country,’’ Popoola said.

He noted that the exercise recorded a huge success as many of the candidates felt at home with the gadget.
According to him, a majority of the blind candidates were coming into contact with the machines for the very first time.

“We have concluded arrangements for this year’s UTME for the blind candidates.
“The candidates were asked to try their hands on the gadgets, in order to get familiar with its functionality one day before the examination.

“We shall be reaching out to our officers in the respective centres to direct them on how to go about this development.
“We also did this with our candidates last year and we will continue with it in the future,’’ he said.

According to the director, the board follows the progress of these candidates before, during and after its examination, which include placements into universities of their choice.

He also said that the board was working to adjust some challenges associated with the machines, in order to further facilitate the hitch-free use of the gadget by the candidates.

“We have contacted the makers of the gadgets abroad to seek adjustment in the software on the machines.
“For instance, there is need to reconfigure the homophones on the machine.

“Often times, the candidates do not get to grasp some words because the voice pronunciation is alien to them.
“Again, there are some diagrams and illustrations in Mathematics that cannot be interpreted by the candidates.

“So we are looking forward to these adjustments, even as we plan to acquire more advanced but simplified machines for the candidates ahead of the 2017 UTME,’’ he added. (NAN)

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