Pius Nsabe
In a bid to douse the controversy that has trailed the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on Monday officially responded to public complaints about its recently released 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination results.
The Board described the complaints as “unusual complaints,” while adding that they came from a few states of the Federation. While JAMB said it acknowledges the complaints, it is currently fast-forwarding its annual system review.
“In response, the Board is fast-forwarding its annual system review—a comprehensive post-mortem of the examination process that is conducted each year, months after the exercise,” the spokesperson of the Board, Fabian Benjamin, said in a statement.
The Board’s annual review encompasses three key stages: registration, examination, and result release. During the examination phase, JAMB ensures that every candidate is afforded the opportunity to sit for the test. Should any technical issues arise, the Board reschedules the examination for affected candidates without hesitation, the statement noted.
“We are particularly concerned about the unusual complaints originating from a few states within the Federation. We are currently scrutinising these complaints in detail to identify and rectify any potential technical issues.
“To assist in this process, we have engaged a number of experts, including members from the Computer Professionals Association of Nigeria, Chief External Examiners, who are heads of tertiary institutions, the Educational Assessment and Research Network in Africa, measurement experts, and Vice Chancellors from various institutions. If it is determined that there were indeed glitches, we will implement appropriate remedial measures promptly, as we do in the case of the examinations themselves.”
In the results released last week, JAMB had said only 25 percent out of a total of 1.94 million candidates that sat for the examination scored up to 200. The Board had attributed this to heightened vigilance, which it said had significantly curbed malpractice.
Meanwhile, thousands of candidates who sat the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination are set to file a lawsuit against the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, following widespread complaints of technical glitches and incomplete questions that allegedly marred the exam.
A candidate who sat the examination at a CBT centre in Maitama, Abuja, told The PUNCH: “During the examination, for my Use of English, I noticed that some of my questions were missing. I raised the alarm, and I wasn’t the only one with the issue. When my result came out, I scored 170. JAMB has not addressed the missing questions.”
Another candidate who wrote the exam on April 26 said she was shocked by her result.
“Last year I scored 287, this year I got 173. Many others who wrote on the same day complained that their English questions were incomplete. This result is not mine.”
The outcome of the exam raised concern in the country, with the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, asserting that the mass failure showed effective anti-malpractice efforts by JAMB.
But most education commentators and parents have insisted that JAMB may have got something wrong that led to the mass failure.
