Stakeholders react on 2025 UTME result

By Matthew Atungwu
 
Reactions have continued to trail the recently released 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, by the joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, and the controversy surrounding the results across the country.

IDOMA VOICE reports JAMB announced the release of the 2025 UTME results with the results of 39,834 candidates been withheld. And out of the .9 million candidates that took the examination, over 1.5 million candidates scored below 200 marks.

Speaking to IDOMA VOICE, a senior lecturer in the Department of Broadcasting and Deputy Dean, Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, Benue State University, Makurdi, Dr Benjamin Ejuwa Ogbu, expressed dissatisfaction over the outcome of the result, lamenting the refusal of Nigerians to keep to the standard of the country’s educational system.

“My general view is the fact that it is a response to the issues that have affected our educational system in Nigeria because if 1.9 million candidates sat for the examination, and 1.5 million scored below 200 marks, it is a very sad development and the fact that we have refused to keep to the standard that defines quality education in our education system in Nigeria. It is not just our institutions have failed, our families have failed and even the church has failed in protecting the value of education in Nigeria,” he said.

Speaking on JAMB pegging the cut-off marks (entry requirements) below 180 marks due to the failure of candidates in the examination, Dr Ogbu frowned at the development on the part of the examination body, saying low performance should not be the yardstick to devalue educational system in Nigeria,

“When you provide a soft landing for poor performance, then, you are somehow encouraging it. And quality is measured by the standard that you set. Once you set a standard and you review the standard to meet the deficiency of candidates, then you have failed. If you have two candidates who are qualified for entry into the university in Nigeria, then so be it. But the truth is that we have commercialized almost everything, particularly in educational system such that it is who has the money that can buy whatever he wants to buy.

“So it has become very difficult to keep to standard. The private universities are just there to pick any candidates irrespective of standard and qualification. Even the public universities have followed suit such that they can now review the entry into Nigerian universities to 150 or 160. This is an embarrassment. It brings embarrassment to the value of education in Nigeria. So when you begin to do things like that reducing qualities to suit the deficiency of candidates, then you make a mockery of everything that goes for quality education.

“So you can’t achieve quality when you will begin to go down because candidates are now aware that they don’t have a mark to work towards achieving. The belief is that at any point in time irrespective of the deficiency, family will go and bribe their way and do everything to make sure that they find entry. The candidates who are aspiring to go to the university are aware that there is a standard that cannot be compromised. They work towards it. But when they are aware that those standards can be compromised, you can always expect that kind of performance in series of examination that the candidates take across the years.

“When you set a standard; you are not the one to compromise it. You allow candidates to aspire to meet that standard you have set, but where the examination body itself having the initiative to bring down the grades such that candidates can enter, that is tantamount to destroying the quality of education in Nigeria. So it is condemnable,” he added.

Following the unusually high number of complaints regarding discrepancies in candidates’ scores, JAMB has admitted to errors in the 2025 UTME.

The Registrar of the Board, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, diclosed this during a press briefing in Abuja on Wednesday, promising that if any glitches are identified, appropriate remedial measures will be implemented promptly.

JAMB has revealed that a total of 379,997 candidates in the five South East states and Lagos were impacted by glitches during the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.

 “A total of 206,610 candidates across 65 centres in Lagos were affected, while in the Owerri zone, which includes the five South East states, 173,387 candidates across 92 centres faced the glitches,” it stated.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has resolved to launch an investigation into the reported technical error that affected the outcome of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.

The resolution was passed during plenary session, following the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance moved by Adewale Adebayo, a member representing a constituency in Osun State.

The lawmaker expressed concern over growing complaints from candidates and parents about irregularities in the released UTME results.

A former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Trafficking and former Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Nigeria, Enugu, Prof Joy Ezeilo, SAN, said she found it inconceivable to attribute over sixty per cent of the failures in 2025 UTME to a lack of intelligence among students.

She said it was commendable that the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has taken responsibility for the widespread failures of candidates in the just concluded 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.

 “It is commendable that the JAMB leadership has taken responsibility for the widespread failures, which were partly due to the introduction of new technology that many candidates were unfamiliar with,” she said.

Meanwhile, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, UNN, chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has threatened to file a lawsuit against the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, over the massive failure recorded in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.

The Chairman of ASUU-UNN, Comrade Óyibo Eze, made this known while briefing newsmen in Nsukka on Wednesday.

According to him, the massive failure, which mostly affected candidates from the South East, was a deliberate attempt by JAMB to stop children from the zone from gaining admission.

He said, “My office has been inundated with protests, calls, and visits by parents and the general public on this deliberate massive failure in the 2025 JAMB examination. ASUU will challenge this result in a High Court if JAMB fails to review the result and give candidates their merited scores.”

Similarly, Human rights lawyer, Evans Ufeli has filed a N10 billion lawsuit against the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, and the Minister of Education, citing widespread irregularities and technical failures that compromised the integrity of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.

The suit, filed at the Federal High Court in Lagos, is being brought on behalf of aggrieved UTME candidates, many of whom are minors as well as their parents and other stakeholders.

On its part, the youth wing of apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide has described as unacceptable the decision by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, to fix a fresh examination for those affected by what it called errors in the recently released results.

In a statement, the National President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide, Mazi Okwu Nnabuike said the arrangement was totally unacceptable.

In the same vein, a lecturer in the Department of Political Science, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Christian Okeke, has urged the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede to go beyond weeping over his incompetence and tender his immediate resignation.

The university don said rewriting the exams in some centres is unacceptable, adding that only the release of the true results of candidates would remedy the situation.

“He should go extra step by resigning from office and allowing the federal government to reposition the Board for effective service delivery”, Okeke stated.