Friday Lines With:
Dr Abubakar Alkali

15/5/25

The time has come to pop the question ‘Is JAMB still relevant in Nigeria’s education system? By miles, the answer to this question is NO. The joint admissions and matriculation board (JAMB) is no longer relevant and should be scrapped in order to strengthen the tertiary admission process and make it hitch-free.

Students don’t need any UTME qualifying examination after scoring 5 O’ Level credits including Maths and English. All they need is a centralised application ID to apply for admission directly to universities and other tertiary institutions.

It is fair to say that JAMB is scandalising the admission process into tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Instead of promoting a seamless process and making it easier for candidates to gain admission into institutions of their choice if they satisfy the O’ Level requirements of the respective institutions, JAMB seems to be compounding the problem by making it difficult for candidates to gain admission even after scoring high grades in their O’ Level examination.

How can a candidate score 7 As on WAEC and not qualify for admission into courses of their choice due to low JAMB score?

If there should be any criteria to trim the number of candidates who apply to study a particular course, let such criteria be set by the respective universities.

Nigerian universities are overstretched and sometimes even candidates with the required JAMB score above the so-called cut off mark are not admitted thus making it necessary that the universities set their individual criteria and absorb students based on the individual capacity of the universities and not forced by JAMB.

There is no need for a qualifying unified tertiary matriculation examination (UTME) set by JAMB. Let the candidates apply directly to the universities.

Just consider the mass JAMB failure recorded this year as a reference;
In the 2025 UTME conducted by JAMB, out of the 1,955,069 million candidates who sat for the examination, over 1,534,654 million (78.5%) scored less than 200 out of the maximum 400.
This means only 21.5% actually passed JAMB this year. This is an outrage!

The 2025 UTME mass failure is certainly not because the candidates are not good enough but because JAMB is not good enough.

How can a candidate make 7 As in WAEC and score just 150 out of 400 in JAMB? Something must be fundamentally wrong.

Most of these candidates who scored less than 200 have made at least 5 O’ level credits including Maths and English but cannot gain admission into courses of their choice due to their low JAMB scores.

The breakdown of the results this year is appalling and further raises the question as to the relevance or otherwise of JAMB; Out of the 1,955,069 who sat for the examination, only 4,756 (0.24%) scored above 320 out of 400. Also, only 7,658 (0.39%) scored between 300-319 and just 12,414 scored above 300 (0.63%).

Considering the number of candidates who scored 200 and above, only about 21.5% could be said to have passed JAMB. This is a huge setback for hundreds of thousands of qualified candidates some of whom have made 9 As in their O’ levels but cannot gain admission courtesy of JAMB.

To all intents and purposes, the joint admission and matriculation board (JAMB) has jammed itself into a corner especially when juxtaposed with its latest failure to organise even a basic UTME as admitted by its registrar Prof Isaac Oloyede.

JAMB has admitted to errors in the 2025 UTME and asked 379,997 to come back and retake the examination. This is as a result of the ‘technical glitch’ experienced in 157 out of the 887 UTME centres across Nigeria. At whose cost will the examination be retaken? Already some candidates have through their lawyers, written to JAMB asking questions and threatening to take JAMB to court over a breach of agreement.

The academic staff union of universities (ASUU) has threatened to sue JAMB to court. What’s the essence of the UTME if you may ask? Why can’t the candidates apply directly to the universities to avoid these ‘technical glitches’ and cogwheels?

Even before it’s latest failure in the 2025 UTME, it is fair to say that JAMB has outlived its usefulness and is no longer relevant as a veritable tool for candidates to apply and gain entry into tertiary institutions in Nigeria. If anything, JAMB is very clearly today a duplication of efforts and resources and should be scrapped.

Savings from the scrapping of JAMB should be invested into building SKILLS ACQUISITION CENTRES up and down the country to enable both graduates and non-graduates acquire hands-on skills to make them employable.

Come to think of it, does a candidate really need JAMB to gain entry into the university? NO
The universities can absorb students directly without having to go through any UTME set by JAMB. Even during our days in the university, some of us entered the universities through the MATRICULATION a.k.a PRE-DEGREE route which is a route set by the university independent of JAMB. All that was required was the standard 5 O’ level credits including English and Maths.

Some universities particularly the private ones today actually admit students without JAMB on the condition that they provide JAMB results AFTER graduation. Whether these candidates made the right JAMB score after graduation or not is another matter entirely. They have finished their course anyway.

If a candidate has achieved 5 O’ level credits in line with the minimum requirements set by the prospective universities, why should the candidate have to go through the multiple choice UTME conducted by JAMB? What value does entering the university through JAMB has?

Why should a candidate have to sit for another examination set by JAMB even after attaining 5 O’ level credits minimum including Maths and English language? The university can choose which course the candidate qualifies for based on their O’ level results.

Scrap JAMB and allow the universities absorb candidate directly to encouraged healthy competition among the universities and other tertiary institutions.

To create a seamless and organised admissions system to replace JAMB, the federal government should set up a centralised system ala the United Kingdom’s Universities and Colleges admissions service (UCAS). UCAS doesn’t conduct any examination. They simply issue an application ID to candidates. Go and apply directly to the universities. UCAS only coordinates, monitors and ensures that qualified candidates gain admission.

The major difference between JAMB and UCAS is that while JAMB conducts an unnecessary pre-qualification examination a.k.a UTME, UCAS doesn’t conduct any examination. For UCAS, all that the candidate needs is achieving the minimum requirements set by the university e.g AAA or ABB or ABA in three subjects as the case may be. UCAS simply gives the candidate an application number, vets and clears the candidates. The rest of the work is with the admitting university.

Comparing JAMB with the UCAS in the United Kingdom will convince you that the huge resources spent on JAMB by the government and the fees paid by candidates are simply not justifiable.

In UCAS, a 10 digit personal ID is given to the candidate with which the candidate applies to five different courses at different universities. There is NO examination in UCAS.
If you have the required O’ level grades, the university admits you. While UCAS uses a centralised application number, JAMB subjects the candidates to another needless examination.

JAMB subjects the student to an unnecessary examination UTME often times leading to needless hassles on the part of the candidates including deaths through road accidents as these young men and women take an avoidable trip on the profoundly risky Nigerian roads to their examination centres. Travelling candidates are open to normal uncertainties on Nigerian roads including bad roads and bandits.

In most cases, even after crossing the so-called cut off marks, candidates will still be assessed by the universities. In fact, scoring very high marks in JAMB doesn’t guarantee admission into the university. The university will still have its own admission requirements which the candidates will be subjected to.
Is this not a duplication?

In fact, money often times exchange hands before the candidate is absorbed even after scoring the required JAMB cut off marks.

Corruption is now entrenched in the admission system into tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Admission in Nigerian universities today is now a huge industry and racket where corrupt university staff extort candidates.

A student with 9 As could score low marks in JAMB and may not secure admission into the universities even though he/she has satisfied the requirements set by the university. So why the need to go through JAMB? It is clearly pointless to subject students to the UTME when the universities can set their own standards and absorb the candidates directly.

The UCAS in the U.K. is not funded by the government. It is a non-profit charity organisation funded through application fees, charity and also through its commercial arm, the UCAS Media Ltd. In contrast and for the same purpose, Nigeria spends billions to fund JAMB.

The resources expended on JAMB annually by the Nigerian government are huge.
In 2024, JAMB got an allocation of N6 billion from the federal government, generated N22 billion and remitted N4 billion. JAMB said it used a whopping N18 billion to conduct the 2024 UTME across Nigeria.

It is curious why JAMB should collect N6 billion from the federal government as ‘allocation’ when it made N22 billion from the examination registration fees? Squeezing some students to part with as high as N5,000 or N3,500 examination fees.
Why not keep the N4 billion and be entirely self funded by not asking for any money from the government? The N18 billion JAMB claimed it used to conduct the UTME examination in 2024 is indeed curious?

A lot of candidates cannot afford the N3,500 JAMB examination fees hence cannot apply for admission to universities even though they have 5 credits or above in their O’ level result. Which is more difficult and relevant, Is it WAEC or JAMB’s UTME?

The current economic reality requires every country including Nigeria to think out of the box.
JAMB itself seems to be weighed down by the task before it. This is clearly demonstrated by the errors recorded in the 2025 UTME.

A young lady in Lagos committed suicide due to low JAMB scores which could have been as a result of the errors in the 2025 UTME as admitted by JAMB.
On April 25, two candidates were reported dead while travelling to Ogbomosho to sit for the JAMB examination as a result of road accident along the Oyo-Ogbomosho road.

JAMB is all but a duplication of efforts and resources. The universities are more than capable of managing their admission processes directly. Scrapping the JAMB and replacing it with something in the mould of UCAS in the U.K – no qualifying examination, just an application ID- will bring some sanity and ensure in a seamless admission process into tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

Dr. Abubakar Alkali writes from Abuja, FCT