Over 41,000 Underage Candidates Sit for 2025 UTME — JAMB Raises Concern
Of the 2.03 million candidates that registered for the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), 41,027 were underage.
On Tuesday, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board registration dashboard provided real-time statistics that supported this claim.
As of Monday, information on the board’s official website showed that 62 instances of examination misconduct had been reported.
Recall that Dr. Tunji Alausa, the Minister of Education, recently restored 16 as the minimum age required for entrance to postsecondary institutions. He emphasized that although there will be exceptions for academically inclined youngsters, applicants under this age would not be admitted.
Additionally, JAMB has made it clear that underage applicants—those under 16—may be given consideration for admission if they exhibit academic excellence by receiving a score of 80% or higher on the UTME. This corresponds to at least 320 points because the test is graded out of 400.
This stance of JAMB came when former Education Minister Prof. Tahir Mamman reversed the necessary 18-year-old age criterion. Many players in the education industry have backed the reinstatement to the 16-year standard.
Speaking during a recent discussion with important stakeholders, such as members of the Equal Opportunity Group, Chief Technical Advisors, and Chief External Examiners, while the 16-year-old age requirement is still the norm, candidates under that age may only be admitted under very specific, extraordinary circumstances, according to JAMB Registrar Prof. Ishaq Oloyede.
In the meantime, the Minister of Education has mandated that the National Examinations Council and the West African Examinations Council start using computer-based testing to deliver their objective assessments by November 2025.
Alausa states that to further reduce exam malpractice, the objective and essay portions of the WAEC and NECO exams are anticipated to be completely switched to CBT by the May/June 2026 exam season.
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