The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) will release the results of 379,000 candidates who took the rescheduled Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) on Wednesday.
These candidates sat for the examination between Friday and Monday after the original UTME faced major problems that led to a resit.
This year’s UTME was initially held for about 1.9 million candidates, but over 1.5 million scored less than 200 out of 400 marks, raising concerns about the exam’s fairness.
The poor results prompted calls for investigation, which revealed technical and human errors, especially in Lagos and the South-East states.
These errors negatively impacted thousands of candidates’ performances.
JAMB confirmed that 379,997 candidates, including 206,610 in Lagos across 65 centres and 173,387 in the South-East across 92 centres, were affected by these glitches.
The board accepted responsibility for the mistakes and arranged a resit for these candidates, notifying them through text messages.
Data from the original UTME showed that only a tiny fraction of candidates scored above 300 marks.
Most candidates scored below 200, a fact that sparked national debate about the examination’s credibility. While some scored between 160 and 199 marks, many others scored even lower.
The South-East Caucus in the House of Representatives demanded the resignation of the JAMB Registrar, describing the examination conduct as a serious failure.
They criticised poor communication about the resit and the very short notice given to students, which clashed with other exams such as the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
This caused additional difficulties for many students and their families.
The caucus asked for the cancellation of the 2025 UTME and called for a fresh exam after ongoing school certificate exams to avoid disadvantaging students.
They also requested the suspension of JAMB officials responsible for the problems and insisted that accountability should go beyond public apologies.
The lawmakers referred to the constitutional right of Nigerian children to equal access to education, saying that the flawed UTME process denied thousands of candidates this right.
