Deborah merely stared without crying.
Deborah Ajayi, 17, remained silent after learning that she had received a score of 187 out of 400 on the 2025 JAMB. She had performed exceptionally well in the WASSCE a few months prior, earning high scores in physics and mathematics. Her goal was to become an engineer. This dream was dashed by a single exam, not because she was unprepared, but rather because the system was never designed to help her.
She is not alone. Just 22.13 percent of the almost two million applicants who took the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) received a score of 200 or higher. Over 1.5 million students were excluded, humiliated, and left stranded.
Laziness or a lack of ambition are not reflected in these figures. They are signs of systemic neglect, a defective curriculum, underqualified teachers, deteriorating infrastructure, and a failed system. The widening discrepancy between what pupils are taught for the WASSCE and what JAMB tests them on is the clearest indication of this failure.
Exam circumstances in any functioning education system are intended to assess knowledge rather than stamina. However, in Nigeria, the exam day itself turns into yet another survival battleground.
Disarray in the curriculum: When JAMB and WASSCE speak different languages
A risky imbalance lies at the heart of Nigeria’s exam failure epidemic. The WASSCE curriculum places a strong emphasis on predictable, structured topics, such as definitions and formulas in physics and basic math. However, when students enter the UTME hall, they are confronted with abstract ideas that they have never been taught. They are tested on topics well outside the scope of the typical public school classroom, such as logic, data interpretation, calculus-level thinking, and arcane physics applications, by JAMB.
This fragmented strategy is a gulf rather than just a gap. Failure becomes inevitable when students are taught one thing and tested on another. However, as if fairness and rigor were incompatible, the school authorities continue to defend the system year after year.
It raises the question of who exactly the curriculum is intended to serve if two significant exit exams intended to evaluate the same academic journey differ so greatly in terms of expectations and substance.
A system that punishes ignorance without providing instruction
Nigeria has constructed an obstacle course rather than an educational system. Teachers are given outdated courses with no supporting materials, and they are frequently underpaid and inadequately educated. Chalkboard science, abandoned labs, and packed classrooms are the main causes of public schools’ woes. Private schools, on the other hand, give their students an unfair advantage by providing simulator-based learning, carefully chosen practice exams, and strategic exam preparation.
A two-tiered system that passes as meritocracy is the end outcome. In reality, it only serves to perpetuate inequity while feigning to evaluate information.
While the other youngster is instructed to fly without wings, the first child is trained to jump hurdles. Only one is anticipated to be successful.
Dreams at dusk, exams at dawn
Then there’s the minor issue of logistics—or the absence of it. Exams are still scheduled by JAMB for as early as 6:30 a.m., despite the dangers to students’ safety, the congestion in the transportation system, and the psychological strain these choices place on them. These diseases cause distress and undermine confidence in addition to impairing performance.
Exam circumstances in any functioning education system are intended to assess knowledge rather than stamina. However, in Nigeria, the exam day itself turns into yet another survival battleground.
The desire to set a lesser standard and the reasons it’s not worth fighting
There is growing pressure to lower the minimum cut-off mark in response to the appalling outcomes. However, that is a surrender, not a solution. Education is diluted when the bar is lowered, not made more accessible. It covers up the curricular crisis rather than solving it.
200 out of 400 is already a reasonable standard. Lowering it further would be a concession of defeat and, worse, would put kids in colleges who aren’t ready for the demands of higher learning.
It’s not that the bar is too high that’s the problem. The reason is that the ladder leading to it has been yanked away.
Twenty-two percent passed. What then becomes of the remaining 78?
A 22 percent pass rate, according to some, is “not bad,” since more than 430,000 applicants received scores above 200, which is more than enough to fill Nigeria’s federal colleges. However, this argument is risky and cynical. It views education as a privilege for a select few rather than a right. Year after year, millions of people are left behind with no justification, no second chances, and no reform in sight. How do they fare? Do we just throw them away? Do their goals have less merit? Public education should aim to raise rather than eradicate.
The reckoning that is ahead: Harmonize or disintegrate
The path ahead is obvious. Nigeria needs to align the JAMB and WASSCE curricula. What is taught and what is tested need to be consistent. To present a contemporary, useful curriculum, teachers need to be prepared with the necessary resources and training. Rebuilding the infrastructure, integrating digital learning, and enforcing accountability at all levels are necessary.
More significantly, politicians need to quit using education reform as a campaign slogan. The quality of the nation’s human capital is what will determine its destiny, not oil, aid, or foreign investment.
A crisis-stricken country cannot afford to pretend to be educated.
The results of the 2025 UTME are a sign of a larger problem, not just a statistic. Students’ failures are not the only issue. They are being punished because the system set them up to fail.
Nigeria will continue to create more failures in the future until it faces this truth, aligns its curriculum, invests in its schools, and honors the intelligence of its students.
Furthermore, scoring won’t be the only way to quantify the catastrophe. It will be included in the number of generations lost.
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