UTME Glitches: Kalu Calls on JAMB to Launch Independent Audit of Exam System

In order to address recent technical issues encountered during the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), Benjamin Kalu, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, has urged the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to conduct a thorough, independent audit of its examination infrastructure.

Speaking to reporters, Kalu criticized the hasty rescheduling of the retake exams, pointing out that some students had to travel great distances to take them because they fell within the current 2025 Senior School Certificate Examinations (SSCE).

He encouraged JAMB to bring in outside experts, such as academic measurement specialists and system engineers, to conduct a comprehensive analysis of its computer-based test (CBT) systems, question delivery systems, answer validation procedures, and result collation techniques.

Additionally, Kalu suggested that JAMB look into independent and technical reports from outside educational technology companies that have gathered candidate-level data right now. He claimed that doing so would make it easier to completely comprehend the scope and significance of the difficulties faced.

“JAMB can only ensure that no impacted candidate is left behind by comparing its internal reviews with independent findings,” he said.

In addition, the Deputy Speaker urged the board to give particular consideration to candidates from Lagos and the South-East, who, he pointed ou,t were disproportionately impacted by the interruptions.

He stated, “JAMB needs to offer a simple, easy-to-use system for comments and appeals, particularly for individuals who were unhappy with the rushed retake or who encountered technical issues during the second sitting.”

Additionally, cooperation with WAEC and other testing organizations must be maintained to guarantee that scheduling issues do not obstruct any candidate’s academic advancement.

“As a sign of openness and accountability, JAMB should proactively release anonymized, candidate-level result data for independent verification and make its systems available to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. Rebuilding public trust will be greatly aided by this.

“To stop recurrence, JAMB needs to put in place more robust deployment validation procedures and real-time monitoring systems going forward. During high-stakes exams, every system upgrade needs to be extensively tested and validated across all server clusters before deployment.

“To the impacted candidates, know that your views have been heard and that your unhappiness is legitimate. Human error or technology malfunctions must never jeopardize the credibility of our national exams.

In my capacity as Deputy Speaker, I can guarantee you that the National Assembly is prepared to supervise and guarantee that these reforms are carried out as promised. Let’s use this unpleasant experience as a springboard for long-term progress.

“Our young people deserve a system that is not only fair but also resilient, transparent, and worthy of their trust,” JAMB said, adding that even in the face of failure, it must work hard because honesty and transparency foster trust, which in turn drives progress.

He praised Professor Ishaq Oloyede, the Registrar of JAMB, and his colleagues for their transparency, heartfelt humility, and accountability in acknowledging the technical mistakes that impacted around 380,000 candidates in Lagos and the South-East Geopolitical Zone. A dedication to justice and fairness is demonstrated by the prompt apologies and the choice to provide retake chances to all impacted candidates.

But even while these steps are vital, we must acknowledge that they do not take away from the grief, upheaval, and uncertainty that our children and their families have endured. Unfortunately, the consequences of this technical error led to the death of a UTME candidate in Nigeria. Our thoughts and prayers are with this courageous young person’s family.

“A critical system patch that is necessary for the new shuffling and validation protocols was not deployed to the server clusters servicing 157 centers in the Southeast and Lagos,” Kalu added, citing the results of the technical review that he had access to.

Three significant systemic adjustments that were implemented in the 2025 UTME were the subject of one of the most important findings. First, a more thorough source-based analysis of the outcomes replaced the conventional count-based analysis.

“In prior years, JAMB mainly used the number of responses provided per session to assess the integrity of examination sessions. A session was considered legitimate if the majority of the 250 applicants in it submitted a nearly comprehensive set of answers.

Any notable difference resulted in the results from that center being disqualified.

But in 2025, a more sophisticated approach was utilized, one that placed more emphasis on the reasoning behind the responses than on their sheer number.

The second modification entailed a comprehensive reorganization of the questions and response choices. This improved test security by guaranteeing that no two candidates, even if they were seated in the same session, would receive the same permutations.

The third modification consisted of several systemic enhancements meant to maximize performance and minimize lag during test sessions. The finest and highest UTME score in 15 years was achieved as a result of this significant policy adjustment; in theory, this was a tremendous accomplishment for JAMB.

Though theoretically sound from a technology standpoint, a significant operational problem was discovered during the deployment phase of these enhancements.

“The server cluster supporting the KAD (Kaduna) zone had the system patch required to support both shuffling and source-based validation fully deployed; however, the LAG (Lagos) cluster, which serves centers in Lagos and the South-East, had not received it. Up until the seventeenth session, when the problem was identified and fixed, this omission remained the same throughout all sessions.

Consequently, a total of 157 centers—92 in the Southeast and 65 in Lagos—operated with antiquated server logic that was unable to manage the new answer submission and marking structure.

System incompatibilities during answer validation negatively influenced the results of an estimated 379,997 candidates.

“JAMB worked with the Educare Technical Team, which had collected answer data directly from more than 18,000 candidates, to confirm the scope and precision of this issue. Following filtering and deduplication, roughly 15,000 genuine records were examined.

The results of the technical review were confirmed by the fact that over 14,000 of these came from the areas served by the unpatched LAG servers.

Significant overlap was found when JAMB’s internal audits and third-party system evaluations were compared, supporting the finding that the impacted centers were, in fact, functioning in compromised conditions.

Because their answers were not correctly vetted and their scores were misrepresented, candidates in these centers were unfairly disadvantaged. This was an avoidable human error in our system, not a failure of our students or a purposeful act of sabotage.

“The toll this has had must not be understated. The rushed scheduling of retake exams, the overlap with ongoing WAEC assessments, the psychological toll, and the logistical difficulties of making last-minute trips to far-off centers have all raised valid concerns from parents and candidates.

“Complaints about challenging questions, time management problems, additional technical difficulties, inadequate center coordination, and insufficient support for those who are still impacted are among the reports from the retake exams that were held on Friday.”