JAMB raked in over N15 billion from candidates in bungled 2025 UTME exam registration fees
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) raked in over N15billion from candidates who registered and participated in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
According to JAMB official figures, a total of 1,955,069 candidates sat for the UTME, reports BusinessDay.
In January, Joint Admission and Matriculation Board released the cost implication for the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and Direct Entry (DE). The board disclosed that the cost implication for UTME with mock was N8,700 while UTME without mock was N7,200.
According to the board, the breakdown is as follows: UTME/DE application fee- “N3,500, Reading Text,- N1,000, CBT centre registration service charge- N700, CBT Centre UTME service charge-N1,500, CBT Mock service charge- N1,500, Bank charges- N500, CBT Mock-UTME centre service charge- N1,500.”
The board also Introduced a mock trial for future candidates which will cost N3,500 to register. The registration for DE has been pegged at N5,700.
The performance across score ranges as follows: 320 and above (4,756 or 0.24 percent), 300–319 (7,658 or 0.39 percent), 300 and above (12,414 or 0.63 percent), 250–299 (73,441 or 3.76 percent), 200–249 (334,560 or 17.11 percent).
Following public outcry and critical scrutiny of the exam body’s systems, it admitted system error affected the candidates performances. Each candidate who participated in the 2025 UTME paid an average sum of N8,000.
The candidates who scored 160–199 are 983,187 or 50.29 percent; 140–159 (488,197 or 24.97 percent); 120–139 (57,419 or 2.94 percent), 100–119 (3,820 or 0.20 percent, while those who scored below 100 are 2,031 or 0.10 percent.
JAMB has admitted system error in the just concluded UTME and apologised to Nigerians, but it is still withholding the results of about 39,780 underaged candidates results for not scoring at least 80 percent or 320 in the UTME.
House of Representatives has urged the Federal Government of Nigeria to direct the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) to release all the results of candidates below the age of 16 who participated in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
A technical review conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board revealed that a critical oversight in server updates, coupled with human error, led to the invalidation of results for 379,997 candidates in the five states of the South East and Lagos State who sat for the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
JAMB partnered with the Educare Technical Team, an independent tech partner, to verify the scale of the impact. Data was gathered from over 18,000 candidates, and after cleansing, about 15,000 authentic response logs were analysed.
The revelation was made during a high-level technical review session held on Wednesday at JAMB’s headquarters in Abuja.
The emergency meeting, chaired by JAMB Registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, was convened in response to the widespread outcry that followed the release of unusually low scores from the 2025 UTME.
Following the mass failure caused by JAMB technical glitches, the vice chancellors of universities, rectors of polytechnics, provosts of colleges of education, principals of schools, and examiners met with JAMB chiefs on the results discrepancies to review UTME results.
Ish’aq Oloyede, registrar and chief executive officer, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on Wednesday admitted that technical errors had affected some candidates’ scores. While explaining 2025 UTME result glitches, JAMB registrar said, “Man proposes, God disposes.”
JAMB has already started rescheduling of UTME for affected 379,997 South East and Lagos candidates.
