Former Minister of Youth and Sport, Prof. Taoheed Adedoja on Sunday commended the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, (JAMB) registrar Prof. Ishaq Oloyede for providing an opportunity for the visually impaired candidates to seat for the JAMB examination through the creation of additional centers for the special students nationwide.
Prof. Adedoja through a press statement personally issued and made available to journalists in Ibadan the Capital City of Oyo state noted that JAMB has created an opportunity for the visually impaired students in Nigeria to have access to higher education.
It was gathered that no fewer than 337 candidates that are visually impaired were allowed to write the JAMB examination in 11 newly created centers nationwide.
Adedoja commended JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede for the creation of additional centers at the Federal College of Education, Special, Oyo, where 52 visually impaired students sat for the 2023 UTME JAMB examination last Thursday and Friday.
Prof. Taoheed Adedoja, who is the Oyo State center coordinator for JAMB and also the former Provost of the College where the examination took place lauded Prof Ishaq Oloyede, describing it as a major intervention over the last seven years.
He said, “This year, JAMB under the leadership of Prof. Oloyede created additional 11 examination centres nationwide for blind students, this was done considering the interest of bringing the venues of the examination closer to the candidates, especially with the security situation in the country and the centres were coordinated by seasoned academics and university administrators with the total number of 337 special candidates.
“Here in Oyo town, at the College of Education, Special, we have students from Oyo State, Kwara and Osun States, this is very commendable, with this laudable effort from JAMB, it showed that our blind students can aspire to study courses of their choice in higher institutions.
One of the candidates at the examination center, Aliyu Abbas who aspired to study Law and also be a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) expressed satisfaction with the conduct of the examination for blind persons by JAMB.
Abass said, “We blind persons have the hope of practicing the profession of our choice, our disability notwithstanding. We want the government to support us more when we gain admission into any higher institution”.
Another candidate, Oluwatobiloba Adebayo said, “I want to study English Language. while another candidate, who took the examination with his laptop computer said “ I will be one of Nigeria’s computer experts when I graduate”.
