EDITORIAL: 2025 UTME error, retooling and getting the inherent lesson

This year’s University Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) was one of a kind. It shoved its handler, the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), into a maelstrom with the mass poor scores of candidates and technical glitches that characterised the test. Arising from this, the agency, under the leadership of its Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, suddenly faced a highly upset – and even belligerent – public, which it was not prepared for.

This was accentuated by the fact that candidates who had sat this exam many times had become frustrated and, in some cases, extremely apprehensive. In Lagos State, for instance, a 19-year-old female candidate, identified simply as Timilehin, tragically committed suicide for her low score of 190, which was worse than her 2024 performance. Others, whose cases are not as terminal as Timilehin’s, are at the nadir of ever attaining dreams of becoming university graduates.

Statistics show that candidates who scored below 200 marks, out of a maximum 400, were about 1.5 million, representing 78 per cent of the total 1.9 million candidates who sat for the examination. Again, those who scored over 320 marks totalled only 4,756, or 0.24 per cent of the entire candidates. The faulty or technical patches of the UTME that’s said to have led to these poor outcomes were more evident in the Lagos and Owerri zones. JAMB made amends in this regard, with 379,997 candidates re-sitting the exam on 16 and 18 May respectively. This has never happened before.

A group of parents and candidates, who could not bear the traumatic experience they passed through, hurriedly instituted a class action suit against JAMB. This was shortly before the agency launched an investigation into the matter, owned up to its mistakes, and profusely apologised to Nigerians and the candidates who felt undone by how badly the exam was conducted.

The JAMB Registrar, Mr Oloyede, a recipient of plaudits since he assumed office for his exemplary leadership and accountability, suddenly became the butt of public tirades. But to all the aggrieved, he offered an olive branch: “I apologise for the trauma caused the candidates.” He beat back tears as he publicly made this overture of penitence and promise of swift retooling. These are virtues that are rare in public service in the country.

There is a huge lesson to learn from this. We believe that Mr Oloyede should be commended for this humility and seeming bravery to admit JAMB’s folly. Other government agencies that ruin their national assignments and even unashamedly go to court to stonewall attempts to bring them to account, should learn from the JAMB authorities. Mr Oloyede’s display of humility and search for redress is how institutions are built and strengthened to regain lost public confidence. No human system is foolproof, needless to say, therefore the vilification should end.

As soon as it could no longer assuage public angst over the incident, JAMB quickly assembled a team of technical experts to conduct a forensic audit of the glitch, which identified the problem. This inquisition was carried out by a team, including an organisation, Educare, led by James Nnanyelugo, an engineer. Its finding was that, “The Lagos and South-East servers continued operating on outdated software that could not interpret the newly shuffled question and answer structure.”

However, the point has to be made, there is nothing JAMB or Mr Oloyede should be mortally ashamed of. If anything, there is enough blame to go around the stakeholders: from schools to teachers, parents, candidates and the government itself. The Computer Based Test (CBT) was introduced in 2013 when it was experimented with in a few centres before being made compulsory in 2014, which effectively eliminated the Paper-Pencil model.

The logic then was that it would make the release of results faster, mitigate exam malpractices, resolve the logistical nightmare of transporting answer sheets from one part of the country to the other, and innovate in varying the questions for different batches of candidates. These goals have been attained.

But despite the laudable ideals, every year, some candidates and their parents become so desperate to secure admission that “miracle centres,” where malpractices openly thrive, gradually became an integral part of the UTME. In some cases, parents hire those they feel could secure higher scores to sit the exams on behalf of their children and wards. To counter this, JAMB introduced a finger-print verification process, to strengthen the integrity of its tests.

The failure of the finger-print verification this year was one of the causes of delay at some centres. Its knock-on effect was anxiety for the affected candidates, while the exam lasted, just as 2,000 candidates reportedly could not sit the UTME as a result of this challenge. Interestingly, 244 WhatsApp platforms for circulating ‘leaked’ exam questions were uncovered, just as 2,185 candidates are under investigation for various malpractices and 97 cases have so far been established. Intriguingly, a visually impaired person, also hired a fellow with the same physical handicap to sit the exam for him, to underscore the degree of this perfidy.

The urge to cheat was what led to the introduction of the element of fingerprint authentication. Its fallout, in delays, therefore, was not JAMB-induced, but that of the cheats. Some schools and teachers, in the perverse promotion of their institutions, encourage and assist their students to excel in the UTME, even as they fail to teach their students well. These culminate in the dysfunctions of Nigeria’s educational system, with no deliberate steps being taken by government to address them.

One issue often neglected, leading to the poor CBT scores of candidates, is the question of their exposure to the use of computers before stepping into the exam halls. Many students in schools in urban centres lack computer skills, let alone those in rural areas. The only time they come in contact with a computer is when UTME forms are filled and submitted. Then, they rush to computer schools for two months of training.

Under this circumstance, time would not be enough to attain proficiency in computer use. This should remind all of a newspaper article by a former presidential spokesman, Segun Adeniyi, of how computer keyboards are learnt on the chalkboard a few years ago. Put differently, no matter how brilliant a candidate is, scoring high marks would be impossible as s/he would fidget with the system throughout the exam. Again, this is not a JAMB-induced crisis.

Some honest candidates have alluded to this as a reason for their poor performance. This is noteworthy against the backdrop of the penchant for blaming JAMB for all that goes wrong with its exams. Fatima Lawal, who recently scored 132, confessed: “I didn’t know how to use the computer very well and I kept waiting for someone to guide me.” Another candidate, Olaoluwa Adeola, who had a 175 score, matter-of-factly, said, “I can’t put all the blame(s) on JAMB. I didn’t prepare well enough.” Their experiences, however, differed from that of Chinedu Okeke from Enugu, who lamented that the system logged him out three times during the physics test.

In all, Mr Oloyede’s first apologia or defence should not be wished away: “This is not peculiar to this year. The performance statistics are consistent with those of the last 12 years.” This should be the focus or beginning of remedying the conundrum – which is fixing the systemic collapse of education in Nigeria.

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Over the past five years, a total of 5,000 candidates with scores of over 300, which was high enough to be admitted for any course, could not make it. Some of the reasons for the paradox included the failure to turn up for post-UTME tests; the abysmal performance of those who participated; wrong O’ level subject combinations, among others.

Perhaps, the cradle of all the tech meltdown during UTME exams is the fact that the country was not ripe for the jump from analogue to the digital mode when the CBT was introduced. This was analogous to a leap from the 18th Century Industrial Revolution to the Fourth Industrial Revolution – the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence revolutions. Yet, the reality is that frog leaping to this new digital age is Nigeria’s best chance for development.