The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has officially declared that only the results from the recent Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) resit will be accepted for admissions, dismissing scores from the initial exam. This announcement comes amid growing confusion and complaints from candidates and parents over multiple exam scores.
Fabian Benjamin, JAMB’s Public Communication Adviser, clarified on Monday that candidates cannot hold two valid results. “One must be withdrawn – that means the old result has been withdrawn,” he explained, addressing concerns from parents whose children scored higher in the original exam than in the resit.
The resit followed technical glitches and irregularities that affected approximately 379,000 candidates, particularly in Lagos and Southeast states. Released on Sunday, the updated results show a notable improvement, with 200,000 more candidates scoring above 200 this year. A total of 565,988 candidates, representing 29.3% of the 1.9 million participants, surpassed the 200 mark—a rise from 24% in 2024 and 23.36% in 2023.
Despite these gains, over 70% of candidates, roughly 1.36 million, still scored below 200, highlighting persistent challenges within Nigeria’s education system. This year’s UTME saw a record participation of 1,931,467 candidates, the highest since the Computer-Based Test system began in 2013.