Eighty-two candidates living with disabilities on Tuesday sat for their United Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) at the Lagos centre.

A News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Correspondent, who visited the centre at the Distance Learning Institute, University of Lagos, reports that the examination started at exactly 8.00 a.m.

NAN reports that this year at the Lagos Centre, 62 visually-impaired persons; four candidates with Down Syndrome; five with Autism; six with Dyslexia; three with Cerebral Palsy; and two with Ocular Albinism sat for the examination.

NAN reports that the UTME for People With Disabilities (PWDs) began on Monday, April 22 and ended on Tuesday, April 23.

The candidates sat for Use of English which is compulsory and three other subjects of their choice from the range of other subjects.

Prof. Olanrewaju Fagbohun, former Vice-Chancellor of Lagos State University (LASU) and Coordinator of the JAMB Equal Opportunity Group, Lagos Centre said that the centre was created to cater for the needs of blind students and other special students.

Fagbohun, who is also a Professor of Environmental Law, said that the goal was to guarantee the special students right to equal opportunity in the conduct of the examination irrespective of their disability status.

“We have other centres in Abuja, Ado-Ekiti, Bauchi, Benin, Enugu, Jos, Kano, Kebbi, Lagos, Oyo and Yola, ” he said.

According to him, the Federal Government of Nigeria through JAMB under the charge of Prof. Ishaq Oloyede is promoting equal and inclusive opportunity for all Nigerians.

“We have been in constant touch with these candidates in the last two months through phone calls, WhatsApp messages and emails, preparing them for the examinations.

“We also notified them of the venue, their free accommodation arrangement for three nights together with their guides from Sunday, April, 21 to Wednesday, April, 24 when they depart,” he said.

Fagbohun added that JAMB made arrangements for their feeding and that of their guides for the entire duration and also paid transport supplementation allowance (for candidates and guides).

“Upon arrival on Sunday, they were given their T-Shirts for easy identification of candidates and guides, and the candidates were all given mark board and stylus (that is their writing materials) as gifts.

“We had medical staff on ground to also attend to them, ” he said.

Fagbohun noted that for this year’s UTME, it used two modes in the conduct of the examination.

“One is the Read Aloud Mode and the other is the Fully Braille Mode.

“We allowed the candidates to make a choice of the mode more than a month ago, and we are flexible in the event a candidate decides to change from one mode to the other,” he said.

One of the visually-impaired candidates, Miss Gabriella Adeboye, said that the centre was perfect and easier for her and her sister which made them finish their examinations.

Adegboye said that she wished other examination bodies could follow this method for people like them, adding that her WAEC result was bad due to lack of assistance.

“This is my first time of writing this examination and I am so satisfied with the way they assisted us with different modules either by reading aloud and the other one.

“I picked University of Lagos as my first choice and I want to study mass communication,” she said.

Another visually-impaired candidate, Abednego Lawrence, said that he had used this centre to write JAMB more than once because he really wanted to study his dream course – mass communication.

Lawrence said that the JAMB Equal Opportunity Group had been very helpful with a lot of things such as good feeding, assistance and support.

“I pray others can do the same because this examination has really helped a lot of us to achieve our dream course.

“My previous JAMB result was good but UNILAG gave me history which made me come back to write another one this year,” Lawrence said.