NewStats: 3,264,549 , 8,184,066 topics. Date: Wednesday, 11 June 2025 at 01:27 PM 5y4tw

The recent release of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results has, once again, sparked widespread concern. Out of approximately two million candidates who sat for the exam, over 1.5 million failed to attain the benchmark score of 200 out of 400, which is 50 percent of the total. This outcome has sparked further debates about the difficulty of the examination, the declining standards of education in Nigeria, and the perceived lack of seriousness among students. However, while these discussions are important, they overlook a fundamental structural flaw in the system—the rigidity of JAMB’s once-a-year examination model. In an era where global educational practices prioritise flexibility and multiple opportunities for success, JAMB’s adherence to a high-stakes, single-sitting examination is not only outdated but also unjust.

The current system places an enormous burden on candidates, leaving no room for contingencies. A student who falls ill on the exam day, faces logistical challenges, or encounters technical glitches during the Computer-Based Test (CBT) has no recourse but to wait an entire year for another attempt. Financial constraints may also prevent some candidates from ing on time, effectively shutting them out of that year’s ission cycle. Even for those who do sit for the exam, the pressure to perform optimally in a single sitting is immense, as falling short of their desired cut-off mark means either settling for less competitive courses or institutions or losing an entire academic year. This all-or-nothing approach is at odds with global best practices, where standardised tests such as the SAT, GRE, and ACT allow multiple sittings within a year, reducing undue pressure on candidates and providing a fairer assessment of their abilities.

Beyond the individual hardships imposed on the students by this system, the logistical strain on JAMB itself is undeniable. Coordinating an examination for nearly two million candidates in a single sitting is a herculean task, fraught with operational challenges. Reports of technical failures or inadequate facilities are common, further complicating an already stressful experience for candidates. Many students are forced to travel long distances to their assigned centres, sometimes at great personal risk—navigating unsafe roads or waking as early as 5 a.m. to arrive on time. If JAMB were to adopt a multiple-sitting model, for example, ister exams in March, August, and November, the istrative burden would be significantly reduced. Smaller, staggered batches would allow for better resource management, minimise logistical errors, and enhance overall efficiency.

“If JAMB were to adopt a multiple-sitting model, for example, ister exams in March, August, and November, the istrative burden would be significantly reduced.”

[b]Critics of this proposal may argue that frequent examinations could compromise standards or encourage loose preparation among students. However, this concern is unfounded. Other major examination bodies, such as WAEC and NECO, already conduct multiple sittings annually without any significant decline in quality and delivery. The key factor lies in maintaining rigorous oversight, ensuring that each sitting adheres to the same high standards of integrity. Furthermore, multiple sittings could actually raise educational standards by allowing institutions to maintain their desired cut-off marks rather than lowering them to fill ission quotas and allowing students good study time to prepare for the next diet without losing touch with the syllabus. Under the current system, many universities are compelled to accept students with scores as low as 120, far below their preferred benchmarks, simply because the pool of eligible candidates is limited by the once-a-year examination bottleneck. If students had more opportunities to retake the UTME within the same year, institutions could afford to be more selective, thereby preserving academic standards.[/b]

From an economic perspective, a multiple-sitting system would also be financially beneficial for JAMB. Candidates who wish to improve their scores would for subsequent sittings, increasing the board’s revenue. Rather than treating the UTME as a once-in-a-year event with overwhelming demand, JAMB could operate as a continuous assessment body, spreading its operations and income more evenly across the year. This would also ease the financial pressure on parents and guardians, who often struggle to gather registration fees under tight deadlines. After all, there would be another opportunity to their wards for another diet of the test within the same year without wasting their time.

Most importantly, transitioning to an annual multiple-examination system aligns with the principles of equity and accessibility that should underpin any credible educational framework. Nigerian students should not have to gamble their futures on a single day’s performance. One day. One sitting. One chance. Education is a right, not a privilege contingent on perfect conditions. By global practice, testing systems are designed to accommodate human variables, stress, health, and unforeseen circumstances by offering flexibility. Nigeria must move in the same direction if it hopes to produce globally competitive graduates.

The argument for reforming JAMB’s examination model is not merely about convenience; it is about fairness, efficiency, and progress. As a nation striving to modernise its education sector, we cannot afford to cling to archaic practices that stifle potential. The time has come for JAMB to evolve—to offer students more than one shot at their dreams. The stakes are too high for anything less.

https://businessday.ng/opinion/article/jambs-once-a-year-exam-is-no-longer-fashionable-its-time-for-change/

How many sections does a university have in a year?

The only issue with jamb is limiting choices
Students should be allowed to apply to as many schools as they wish

The writer is somehow logical but so many factors make his proposal unrealistic in Nigeria.

1.
Less than one or two percent of the universities in Nigeria it students in batches annually. How can writing JAMB multiple times annually fit into one ission in a year for the majority of the Nigerian universities?

2.
That WAEC and NECO conduct exams multiple times annually has not in any way improved success rate in those exams. As a matter of fact, the second exam each of them conduct within the year is called GCE. Claiming that writing JAMB exam multiple times in a year will improve success rate in the JAMB exam is like when Nigerians claimed that electronic card reader will improve voting system in Nigeria.

3.
JAMB is even more improved than NECO and WAEC. JAMB is CBT.

4.
Writing JAMB exam multiple times a year does not in any way reduce the financial burden on the candidates and the guardians or parents. Who will borrow will still borrow. Who will easily afford the registration will still afford it easily.

Parents advice your children to go and learn work, stop this education, education that, you know they should go and learn work just imagine that after school no work, and when you fail the jamb or any other example you tend to waste one year at home doing nothing what for.. you can use your phone to impact good resources to your self, this education will take Nigeria no where, we need to come up with a resource to make our youthful age resourceful. After all people that finish from school are now yahoo boys and prostitute girls this is getting annoying... 🤔

FREE NNAMDI KANU first

AnonPoet:


https://businessday.ng/opinion/article/jambs-once-a-year-exam-is-no-longer-fashionable-its-time-for-change/

Before they eraze JAMB, let NECO and WAEC be computer base test with CCTV in every corner, after that, let each university conducts her own entrance exams.

Pointful

Your article is confusing.
Are you advocating for multiple sitting or you are advocating for multiple exam dates like spring, summer and Co as done in the US.

Because JAMB is not meant to be sat for multiple times for one entrance point, in an exam period.

Well, except for those with Technical issues, that I think should be allowed to retake the Exam, I don't think organizing Matriculation Examination every 3month will make any sense.

Moreover, alot of things makes sense on paper in Nigeria but implementation is always marred by our Nigerianess

Sha, make Students face their Book.

The painful part is watching our educational system collapse without or with little energy to savage it . There was a time when students prepared assiduously for examinations but today,even on JAMB's eve, students were still on TikTok making useless contents....And trust me,the outcome came like a shock,but not to those of us who already knew what it'd turned out to be

Have you considered the academic calendar of the tertiary institutions?. Do you think they are under Jamb and Jamb can just push students at their doors at will?.

Rubbish. How is it the fault of JAMB that the students failed woefully? JAMB does not prepare students for exams, that's the job of the secondary schools ( both public and private). JAMB only set the exam base on what the school ought to have taught them.
So JAMB should lowe its standard because of these lazy students we have now abi? JAMB is now the problem because you guys can't cheat or manipulate the system.... Please pull down this article from front page.

How woud they change the system when they make a lot of money from JAMB registration fee

It doesn't matter if they do it 20times in a year. If students won't read, they must fail.

Students of nowadays are already chasing money at 15! They are interested in Nairabet, gambling, yahoo and any quick money scheme.

Many years ago, the pigs announced that every animal must the Great Test before they could enter the Academy in the Big Barn. “This Test,” they didn’t proclaim was to guard the gates against the unworthy millions beyond the pasture fence, that the greedy pigs couldn’t cater for. A pig in Kogi has used resources that could build an academy , for the nursery of his piglets.

And so the Test was laid upon them.

Some young horses and sheep answered most riddle correctly and even bested the questions of the wise old goat, yet when they trotted proudly to the gates, they were brusquely turned away. “Your names have been struck from the roll,” sneered the guard-dogs, “though you ed some questions, you didn’t reach the mid-point, you do not belong here.” Meanwhile, timid rabbits and humble geese in the north’s whose scores fell below the required number often found themselves itted, rewarded by less demanding overseers who cared little for the true meaning of the Test. The rabbits and geese’s were humble and timid in scholarship but they were elephants and bears in knowledge.

In time, many who had failed the Test wandered into the fields beyond of polytechnics only to flourish in the hedgerow of life’s lessons: the owls mastered wisdom, the ducks achieved honors in distant marshes, and the young goats graduated with shining laurels.
They had 120 in the test, yet they had distinctions as they convocated.
The pigs ensure lots fail, so the lots can subscribe to expensive academies where scores were merely numbers.


Yet year after year, new flocks of hopefuls gathered at the fence, convinced that failure marked laziness or folly, never suspecting that the Test’s cunning lay not in its moral rigor but in its needless complexity.

And so the Test endured: a ritual of exclusion dressed in the cloak of merit. The pigs on their raised platform, satisfied that their gates remained well-guarded, cared little for the fortunes of the creatures they had judged. For in the end, those who failed were not indolent or lacking in spirit , it was merely that the Test had been crafted to confound even the wisest among them.

Hey: I have to eat my hay.

Seconded.

Okay

From an economic perspective, a multiple-sitting system would also be financially beneficial for JAMB. Candidates who wish to improve their scores would for subsequent sittings, increasing the board’s revenue. Rather than treating the UTME as a once-in-a-year event with overwhelming demand, JAMB could operate as a continuous assessment body, spreading its operations and income more evenly across the year. This would also ease the financial pressure on parents and guardians, who often struggle to gather registration fees under tight deadlines. After all, there would be another opportunity to their wards for another diet of the test within the same year without wasting their time
.

The point highlighted above appears to be unpersuasive. If parents and guardians experience difficulties in saving consistently over the course of 365 days, what probability exists that they would be able to save on a quarterly basis?

Fiscus105:


Before they eraze JAMB, let NECO and WAEC be computer base test with CCTV in every corner, after that, let each university conducts her own entrance exams.

How about introducing VAR and goal line technology?

Are issions into tertiary institutions in Nigeria multiple times in a year


Also, many Nigeria's are crying mass failure in this year's UTME results.... whereas, there is no significant difference between this year's over 400,000 candidates scoring 200 or more out of about 1.9 Million candidates compared to same exams conducted over the past 20 years!!!

Students scoring 200 or more has always been between 24-26% for years!!!

For me, limiting the choice of school and course should be looked into...allow students choose as many as 10 institutions..let them widen their choices..if a place is filled, they can have the chance elsewhere

Lol. Can't work at all.

It is not unexpected. Every year, when Jamb results are released, all manners of analysts appear out of the blues with suggestions ranging from the absurd to the crazy.


..... see you next year

Aluta

Fiscus105:


Before they eraze JAMB, let NECO and WAEC be computer base test with CCTV in every corner, after that, let each university conducts her own entrance exams.

The truth no one wants to hear.

If your suggestions are adopted, plenty fowls yansh go open.

Na the way Jamb is being conducted na hin dey seperate wheat from the chaff.

Allow Universities run different calendars. Students should be able to apply for JAMB exams at least 3 times yearly with a 2-year validity. The idea of mobilising over a million students across the 36 states to sit for the same exam at the same time is diabolic and evil.

A Nigerian student got 40 scholarships to study in different universities in the U.S. This would not have been possible with the archaic system we practise here. Our educational system is diabolic and evil. A man wants to study Medicine, sat for JAMB, and for some weird reasons (could be anything including stress) scored 215. To avoid wasting 1 year of his destiny, the evil system in Nigeria forces him to settle for a course he is not interested in. This is how we truncate people's destinies in Nigeria and render them useless to themselves and society.

We need to dismantle the entire system. Failing a subject or getting a score below the cut off mark is not enough to destroy a person's 365 days. If the education system we practice does not encourage 15 year olds to resit or try again without wasting their 365 days, then it's no surprise why many adults today embraced failure as parts of their reality. The system forces you to embrace whatever life throws at you. No sense of purpose, no incentive to try.

OK

When I sat for and wrote JAMB some years ago, we had this privilege only in the particular university I ended up attending. But for safety reasons I sat for and wrote the following year's JAMB and even had a higher score, but I never used it! I ended up entering University using that previous year's JAMB result. This has been many years ago. For those who wrote JAMB between 1993 and 1994 please share with us your experience in sitting for JAMB during the June 12 MKO Abiola period. I know it affected JAMB that period.

ppogba:


The truth no one wants to hear.

If your suggestions are adopted, plenty fowls yansh go open.

Na the way Jamb is being conducted na hin dey seperate wheat from the chaff.

We need WAEC and NECO to do more than what JAMB is doing, if possible, they should move the man in jamb to NECO/WAEC as one body.

Students still by jamb to become half baked graduates.

wait i think say JAMB na 2 times a year

Okay