The 2023 mock Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, earlier scheduled for Thursday, March 16, 2023, has been shifted to Thursday, March 30, 2023,newsmen reports.

The shift in date is partly due to the change in date for the gubernatorial and state Houses of Assembly elections, which were earlier scheduled to hold on Saturday, March 11, 2023, but have now been moved to Saturday, March 18, 2023, the examination board said in a statement on Monday afternoon.

Newsmen reports that the mock UTME is an optional examination introduced by the JAMB to provide opportunity for candidates to have hands-on experience with the system as well as afford the board an opportunity to ascertain its readiness and that of its partners for the main UTME, which is scheduled to hold between April 29 and May 12, 2023.

Meanwhile, no fewer than 168,748 students registered for the 2023 mock UTME out of the over 1.5 million prospective candidates for this year’s UTME, according to official statistics provided by JAMB.