Professor Ishaq Oloyede
As Oloyede leaves office, he leaves behind a legacy of transforming one of the most lethargic public institutions into a regulator that combines fairness and transparency, especially using biometric controls, CBT centres, e-PINS, USSD, and other digital payment systems… Today, JAMB operates as one of Africa’s largest and most centralised university admissions systems, through the Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS), which has been recognised for improving efficiency and transparency in admissions.
If the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) was sick when Professor Ishaq Oloyede was appointed Registrar 10 years ago, it might have been said that even great institutions have their difficult times. That’s not unusual. But JAMB wasn’t sick.
It was dying and becoming so irrelevant that those it was supposed to serve were wishing it dead. JAMB was not just a problem; it had become the problem of gaining admission into higher institutions, with heartbreaking stories of thousands of candidates for whom hard work and good WAEC grades no longer seemed to matter.
Beating the system became the sport, and fraudulent coaches, often assisted by JAMB insiders, established “miracle centres” with large signboards offering hallelujah promises of how to pass your exam without sitting for it. We can smile now, but believe me, it was not a laughing matter then.
