Why Over 5,000 Candidates With 300+ UTME Scores Were Denied Admission — Shocking Reasons Revealed!
According to Saturday PUNCH’s research, at least 5,000 applicants who received a score of 300 or above on the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board’s (JAMB) Unified Tertiary and Matriculation Examination (UTME), throughout five academic sessions, were not accepted into postsecondary institutions.
During the time under review, 8.5 million applicants took the UTME, according to data our correspondent in Abuja received from JAMB on Friday.
Only roughly 2.7 million of the total were accepted into universities, leaving roughly 5.8 million stranded.
In Nigeria, the only exam that is accepted for entrance to postsecondary schools is the UTME.
Candidates, including high scorers, were denied admission for a variety of reasons, according to the examination body, including “wrong O’level subject combination, low post-UTME screening score, non-acceptance of admission offer, duplication of application, absence from post-UTME screening, and mismatch of catchment.”
Admission information
The data shows that 1,792,719 candidates took the UTME in the Federal Capital Territory and the 36 federation states during the 2019–2020 school year.
According to information gleaned from the following year’s policy meeting paper, 1,180,162 candidates were not admitted to higher education, while just 612,557 were.
The JAMB policy meeting paper for 2021 states that only 551,553 admission quotas were filled out of 1,949,983 students who took the UTME in the 2020–2021 academic year.
Only 312,666 of the 1,400,000 applicants who took the exam during the 2021–2022 academic year were admitted, while 1,087,333 were not.
The test was taken by 1,800,000 students in the 2022–2023 school year. However, the data presented at the 2023 JAMB policy conference in Abuja states that only 557,625 admission quotas were filled.
According to the data, 1,242,375 applicants were not accepted.
There were 1,635,881 applicants who took the exam for the 2023–2024 academic year; however, only 639,263 were accepted.
Experts look for an extension of the validity of the results.
Education specialists, meanwhile, have requested that JAMB increase the validity of its findings.
“I believe that the best course of action will be for JAMB to extend the validity of the UTME,” stated Ayodamola Oluwatoyin, Program Director, Reform Education Nigeria. When you look at WAEC, for example, you know that you can still use it later if you were unable to utilize it for admission the year you graduated. To avoid having to pay next year, let JAMB prolong the validity. The nation’s economic circumstances are not favorable.
Omotomiwa Daniels, another educator, stated that a large number of children took the test each year.
“Those who are not accepted have the opportunity to write annually until they succeed. Why not increase the UTME results’ one-year validity to perhaps two or three years? She went on to say.
FG supports JAMB
Despite technological difficulties encountered during the 2025 UTME, Nigerians have been reassured by Education Minister Tunji Alausa that the computer-based testing method utilized by JAMB is reliable.
In a Friday interview in Lagos, Alausa reiterated his faith in the CBT system and Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, the JAMB Registrar’s leader.
He explained that the interruption was a technical issue brought on by scrambled questions that were not loading properly in several locations, especially in Lagos and some regions in the southeast.
“What transpired did not represent the integrity of JAMB or the legitimacy of the CBT system. The service provider made a human error that has since been fixed. The reaction was prompt and clear. The minister said, “JAMB brought together technical experts, carried out a forensic audit, determined the issue, and is currently putting a solution in place.”
To protect the integrity of the process, he continued, JAMB had taken preventative measures before the exams by carrying out technical inspections and collaborating closely with its partners.
Alausa stated that although the experience was regrettable, it had provided a chance to enhance the assessment procedures.
Oloyede publicly expressed regret for the trouble the affected students and their parents had to endure earlier in the week, and he added that the exam board had identified a technical issue that sprang from one of its service providers.
Additionally, he said that impacted applicants would be rescheduled for a different exam.
The same was true at the Vanilla CBT Center in the state’s Ayobo region, where 223 candidates took the test in the first session and 227 in the second.
The same number of pupils attended the second CBT center, which is located at Enefem International School in Ayobo, with 216 for the first session and 225 for the second.
Ayodele Ezekiel, the school’s owner, told Saturday PUNCH that the short notice for the rescheduled test was the reason for the turnout.
Some students were not notified promptly, which contributed to the poor participation. A few of them were completely unaware that they had a test this Friday morning. When candidates are well educated, we typically record about 246 for the UTME on a typical day. We had a little fewer prospects than normal, though, because this time was different,” he said.
The director of a different CBT center in the state’s Iyana Ipaja region, who wished to remain unidentified, attributed the low turnout to the short notice.
“Some of the students received the notification very late,” he said. Some people got it this morning (Friday). We therefore had to use discretion. It is expected that everybody attending an exam will have some sort of identification with them.
However, other students showed us the notification on their phones when they hurried in very early today without any slips. We were forced to let them in. We would have sent them off to find a location to print their slips if we had adhered to the standard JAMB regulations. However, since we are also parents, we promptly exercised our discretion.
“I believe that the low attendance was partially caused by the short notice. For example, a woman arrived this morning for the exam looking disheveled. She claimed that she had to hurry down right away because she had only received the notice this morning. She probably didn’t even take a bath before she left the house.
Even if a lady is well-prepared, her performance may suffer psychologically. Thus, the rescheduling was not done correctly. Since some of the students are still taking the WAEC, the board ought to have given them at least a week’s notice following the end of the current exam.
Students complain about the distance.
Numerous parents and children who attended the exam expressed dissatisfaction at the considerable distance they had to go.
Segun, one of the students who did not attend the first CBT exam session at New Ocean, told Saturday PUNCH that he was in Abuja on Thursday when he received the notification.
“I received their mail on Thursday while I was in Abuja. Therefore, my brother and I had to take a bus down to Lagos for the night. As you can see, I hurried down without even taking a bath. However, when I arrived, I was informed that the session was over. It is a depressing one,” the child said.
However, Mrs. Akinwolere Olusola, the school’s central administrator, attributed it to some pupils’ delayed enrollment.
“When and where the students registered for the exam determines the examination location,” she stated. Due to their late registration, some individuals from far away were listed here.
“Those who signed up for the test ahead of time would be assigned to locations under their control. However, if you register after the deadline, the board will have to list the available spots.
Parents worry about their children’s performance.
In separate interviews with Saturday PUNCH at the CBT centers where the retest was administered on Friday, some parents criticized the brief notice, claiming it could lead to subpar performance.
Combining the UTME with the ongoing WASSCE has become a strain for her kid, according to Ejeke Patricia, one of the parents whose son took the test at Enefem International School in the Ayobo neighborhood of Lagos.
“They gave us very little notice. The WASSCE has been written by my kid. Only on Thursday afternoon, just after he returned from his WAEC exam, did he receive the notice for the retest. The woman said, “I just pray that God will help him do better.”
Mrs. Kuye Temidayo, another parent at the center, reported that her son received the information extremely late on Thursday and never had enough time to get ready because he was supposed to attend the first session.
“I came here from Ipele in Ayetoro, Ogun State,” she stated. He received the notification here, and it arrived on Thursday night. We therefore had to hurry down here today and retrieve his printout. In my opinion, the kids’ performance will be impacted by the short notice. Before some of the students could find this location, the exam had already begun. She complained, “That notice was just too short.”
We are concerned that this could lead to subpar performance. To ensure that our worries are not in vain, we only need to pray that God will help them get through everything. For example, we had to purchase seats just to enjoy the sun. Before providing us with a chair, the residents collected ₦300 from each individual. To sit there, the people you see under the umbrella had to pay much more. Simply put, it’s stressful,” she continued.
Another parent, Mrs. Araba Stella, confirmed this by stating that several pupils received the exam notice on Friday morning and expressed uneasiness over the short notice.
We reside in the Ikorodu neighborhood of Lagos, and we received the warning on Thursday afternoon. Since then, I have just been praying because I know that the students’ performance will likely suffer due to the short notice.
Some simply received the notice this (Friday) morning, while others were supposed to write the exam by 6:30 a.m. today. Even now, some people do not know where their exam is being held. There’s a lot of suffering because of the short notice,” she said.
Meanwhile, in several of the centers our journalists watched in Anambra and Owerri, Imo State, the exams went off without a hitch on Friday.
When our correspondents visited the three CBT centers in Awka city—the St. John of God ICT Center, the JAMB ICT Center, and the St. Patrick’s College ICT Center—they noticed a significant number of security personnel.
At their duty position, the security personnel assigned to the centers were observed performing security checks on applicants in addition to JAMB officials’ biometric verification processes.
A few of the applicants who failed the screening process were instructed to print their exam sheets again and were rescheduled to take the test at a later date.
They advised JAMB to make sure that the mistakes made in the previous exam didn’t happen again.
One of the parents of a candidate at St. Patrick’s College ICT Centre, Awka, Uchenna Akachukwu, spoke to our correspondent and praised JAMB staff and security officials for their “professionalism and discipline,” highlighting the significance of keeping a safe, comfortable, and calm environment for candidates.
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