When TechCabal first spoke with Tamunotonye, the 16-year-old United Tertiary Matriculation Examination candidate from Borokiri in Bonny Island, Rivers State, southern Nigeria, his fear had a shape.
It was not the exam itself; it was the machine. He had never used a laptop.
The UTME, Nigeria’s gateway into universities and other tertiary institutions, has been computer-based since 2015, but to Tamunotonye, the keyboard, mouse and screen represented a hurdle far more immediate than any question JAMB could set.
“I have no idea how to use a mouse,” he had said quietly then.
Weeks later, that fear has begun to loosen its grip.
