The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has sanctioned some of it’s officials over the harassment of a female Hijab-wearing candidate.
According to The PUNCH, the Head of Public Affairs of the Board, Dr. Fabian Benjamin made it known on Sunday.
The spokesperson noted the board is deeply regretted the incident.
It said on investigation, it discovered that the incident or others in the past were not linked to any of its examination guidelines but rather a product of the misplaced priority of some of the Board’s accredited partners or officials who claimed ignorance of the its guidelines on accreditation.
The statement read, “This situation was instantly addressed by a senior official of the Board at the center and the candidate in question was allowed in after the usual checks with her hijab.
“However, since ignorance of the law is not an excuse, the officials have been appropriately sanctioned to serve as a deterrent to others, who might wish to toe the same line going forward.
“It is worthy of note that the Board, as a national institution, has no policy barring candidates from sporting the religious paraphernalia peculiar to their religious persuasions as these are the facts of everyday life in Nigeria, which everyone should have been familiar with by now.”
“The Board is committed to the discharge of its statutory role of ensuring that suitably qualified candidates are selected for admission into the nation’s tertiary institutions and would not allow anything or anyone to detract it from the pursuit of this noble goal,” it reiterated.
It would be recalled that the female candidate who sat her Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination at the Bafuto Institute, Ile-Iwe Bus Stop, Ejigbo, Lagos was said to have been asked to remove her headcover during the accreditation process before being allowed into the examination hall.
