Though there have been complaints in the past about the activities of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, an agency responsible for the management of entrance examinations and admissions into tertiary schools in Nigeria, this year’s has turned out to be the worst. The 2025 edition of the board’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination was released on Friday, 9th of May.
Since then, candidates, parents and other stakeholders in the entrance into tertiary schools’ scheme have continued to lay one form of complain or the other against the poor performance of candidates. According to the examination agency, a total of 1,955,069 results were processed, out of which only 4,756 candidates (0.24 per cent) scored 320 and above, considered top-tier performance, while 7,658 candidates (0.39 per cent) scored between 300 and 319, bringing the total for those who scored 300 and above to 12,414 candidates (0.63 per cent).
Again, 73,441 candidates (3.76 per cent) scored between 250 and 299 while 334,560 candidates (17.11 per cent) scored between 200 and 249. A total of 983,187 candidates (50.29 per cent) scored between 160 and 199, which is widely regarded as the minimum threshold for admissions in many institutions.
In the same vein, 488,197 candidates (24.97 per cent) scored between 140 and 159 just as 57,419 candidates (2.94 per cent) scored between 120 and 139. 3,820 candidates (0.20 per cent) scored between 100 and 119, and 2,031 candidates (0.10 per cent) scored below 100.
The translation of all these is that over 75 per cent of all candidates (1.5 million) scored below 200, average score seeing as the examination is graded over 400. In general, the result shows a declining trend in the performance of candidates seeking admissions into higher institutions in the country. In reacting to this, the minister of education, Dr. Tunji Alausa said the high failure rate in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination was a clear evidence that the government’s anti-malpractice measures were yielding results, especially within the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board system.
But in what appears like a confirmation of the fears about the deteriorating standard of education in the country, the Registrar of JAMB, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, while reacting to the results and even after the investigation into the issue still insist that the performance statistics for the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination are in line with results recorded over the past 12 years. He emphasised, however, that such results are not unusual and align with historical patterns. Explaining further, he said; in 2024, 76 per cent of candidates who sat the UTME scored less than 200 points and in 2022, 1.3 million candidates out of 1.7 million – or 78 per cent – who sat the 2022 UTME scored below 200, according to JAMB while in 2021, only 803 candidates out of 1.3 million – or 0.06 per cent – who sat the 2021 UTME scored above 300.
Having realized the magnitude of the protests trailing the year’s UTME result, the examining body has decided to immediately commence investigations into the complaints, especially those that bother on negligence by the board resulting into technical glitches. This is one of the best ways to go, given the fact that quality education of the people remains the bedrock of the development of any nation.
Those blaming the poor performance of the Nigerian youths on challenges that arose from the glitches on the conduct of the examinations are probably not aware that in the same test, a candidate scored 337, the highest since the establishment of JAMB in 1978, according to the examining authorities.
In all honesty, failure by majority of the candidates should not be surprising to Nigerians. The reason is because the challenges faced by Nigerians desiring to be educated are enormous.
To begin with, teaching activities in schools have declined since the 2019 COVID-19 pandemic. Many teachers in public schools seldom attend classes. And where they do, they do not attend such for more than three times in a week.
This is not enough to cover the syllabus that are arranged to be covered within a time frame of a minimum of five days in a week multiplied by the number of weeks that make up the entire study period. So, for parents who do not have the means to either send their wards to private schools or arrange private home lessons, passing computer-based tests must be a tall dream.
Additionally, the reading culture of many young people in Nigeria has declined greatly. The negative attitude of reading is worsened by the rate of poverty in the country. Only a few privileged persons are able to buy relevant textbooks for their children.
Besides the poor reading culture and public schools’ teachers’ attitude to work, there is hardly any rural school that has well equipped computer laboratory to aid the teaching and learning of students. This is in addition to the fact that many rural teachers are not even computer-literate.
Above all, just like the education minister observed, the blockade of the loopholes that hitherto aided candidates to obtain bogus marks in the past may have also dealt heavy blows on unscrupulous parents and their wards.
As the investigation into the causes of these failures comes to a close with JAMB accepting responsibility for the mass failures, it is only imperative for all concerned to vacate their offices voluntarily as a mark of honour. Appology from Oloyede is not enough!
