The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Registrar, Prof. Oloyede, tearfully apologized to Nigerians yesterday over controversies surrounding the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), admitting that errors affected the examination's outcome.
The apology comes amid threats of legal action from thousands of candidates who experienced technical glitches and incomplete questions during the examination. Alex Onyia, CEO of Educare and education advocate, announced that over 8,000 affected students have formally complained and plan to commence legal proceedings against JAMB at the Federal High Court this week.
"Currently, we have 8,391 students who have sent in their complaints regarding the glitches in the JAMB 2025 exam," Onyia stated on his X page. "There is ample evidence to prove that JAMB's system was inefficient, thereby causing serious harm to these students' mental health."
Experts Blame Government Neglect
Dr. Michael Ogbemudia, a Lecturer at Chrisland University, Abeokuta, attributed the poor performance to government neglect of the education sector. "The Nigerian government in recent years has done the least to attend to critical issues bothering on education, especially at all of the basic levels," he said.
Former presidential candidate Peter Obi described the outcome as "a reflection of the deep-rooted challenges in our educational system," blaming the alarming failure rate on "decades of underinvestment in education, a sector that should be central to our national development strategy."
However, Education Minister Dr. Tunji Alausa offered a different perspective, claiming the mass failure demonstrated effective anti-malpractice efforts. "That's a big concern, and it's a reflection of exams being done the proper way," Alausa stated, adding that JAMB's security measures had "completely eliminated" fraud and cheating.
Declining Educational Standards
Dr. Chidiebere Nwachukwu, Senior Lecturer at the University of Nigeria, rejected the Minister's claims, insisting that educational standards have been declining for years. "We cannot ignore the fact that the standard of education has been falling over the years in our country," he said, citing unmotivated teachers and inadequate salaries as contributing factors.
"When somebody is paying a salary at the end of the month, a salary that cannot buy even a bag of rice for the family, what motivation is there for the person to go there and labour from morning to evening each day to prepare students for exams?" Nwachukwu questioned.
Dr. Ata-Awaji Anthony Reuben, acting HOD of Mass Communication at Topfaith University, described the statistics of candidates scoring below 200 as "a reflection of the current state of education in the country." He criticized the government's response as "shameful and worrisome," noting that "any contest that produces less than 50 percent success can never be described as good competition."
Calls for Reform
Stakeholders have outlined several recommendations for addressing the crisis in Nigeria's education sector. These include improved teacher motivation through better salaries, curriculum review, and a reorientation of societal attitudes toward education.
"The government should be intentional about improving the quality of education in Nigeria by recruiting competent teachers to teach students across the country and the teachers should earn fabulous salaries to boost their morale," Dr. Reuben advised.
As affected candidates await the opportunity to retake the examination, the controversy has highlighted deeper systemic issues within Nigeria's education sector that experts say require urgent attention beyond addressing the immediate examination problems.
