Nearly 380,000 candidates resitting the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) due to technical and human errors is a violation of right to fair assessment.
Development Diaries reports that the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) recently admitted errors in the results of some candidates who took the 2025 UTME.
Analysis of the results indicated that more than 78 percent of candidates scored less than 200 points out of the 400 maximum obtainable points, raising concerns about the overall performance and the integrity of the examination process.
Even though the Registrar of JAMB, Ishaq Oloyede, recently broke down in tears as he apologised for the errors in the results, which were from the negligence of JAMB’s staff, it is not enough.
Every candidate is entitled to an examination process that is accurate, unbiased, and technically sound, one that reflects their true academic ability.
For many of these young Nigerians, the UTME represents a pivotal moment in their educational journey, and to have their results nullified due to no fault of theirs is both disheartening and a breach of trust.
While JAMB’s apology and the registrar’s emotional remorse demonstrate accountability, they do not erase the emotional trauma and disruption caused to affected candidates.
Technical failures, especially of this scale, call into question the reliability of Nigeria’s examination systems and expose the vulnerabilities students face when institutions fall short.
It is unacceptable that one or two personnel errors could undermine the efforts of nearly 400,000 students who spent months preparing for this critical examination.
Moreover, this crisis brings to the fore the glaring weaknesses in Nigeria’s digital infrastructure in education.
While JAMB has made notable strides in digitising the UTME, the uneven deployment of server updates between regions, as seen in this case, reveals serious gaps in I.T. capacity, testing protocols, and quality assurance.
For a national exam of such importance, all technical updates and server functionalities must be uniformly implemented and audited prior to deployment.
Development Diaries calls on the JAMB registrar to ensure significant investment in digital infrastructure across all examination centres, including standardised pre-exam system checks, third-party audits, and real-time monitoring tools.
Additionally, technical personnel must undergo continuous training to keep up with system upgrades and error mitigation procedures.
Photo source: JAMB
