LAGOS, NIGERIA – The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has released the results of its rescheduled 2025 Unified Tertiary and Matriculation Examination (UTME), revealing a significant shift in performance. Following the resit, approximately 200,000 additional candidates successfully scored above the 200-mark threshold.
The updated results, released on Sunday, show that the number of candidates who scored 200 and above now stands at 565,988, which accounts for 29.3% of the 1.9 million total candidates. This marks a substantial improvement from the initial results released on May 9, where over 1.5 million participants had scored below 200. With the new figures, the number of candidates below the 200-mark has decreased to 1,365,479 (70.7%).
The resit was necessitated after JAMB identified “technical and human errors” in its system following widespread concerns over mass failure in the initial exam. The board subsequently scheduled a makeup test for nearly 380,000 candidates in Lagos and states across the South-East whose results were compromised by a faulty server update during the first few days of the examination.
Despite the initial challenges, JAMB noted that the overall 2025 performance shows a positive trend compared to recent years. For instance, the 565,988 candidates scoring 200 and above this year is an improvement on the 439,961 (24%) in 2024 and 355,689 (23.36%) in 2023.
Similarly, 117,373 candidates (6.08%) scored 250 and above in 2025, up from 77,070 in 2024.
In its official statement on Sunday, JAMB also addressed the release of results for over 41,000 underage candidates. The board clarified that while the results are being released “as part of the healing process,” they do not qualify the candidates for admission, citing a pre-signed undertaking that only candidates meeting prescribed age standards would be considered.
The board also noted that the investigation into the initial glitches revealed “numerous alarming practices perpetrated by candidates, certain Proprietors of Schools/Computer-Based Test centres, which have exacerbated examination irregularities.”
As universities prepare for the upcoming admission cycle, JAMB is expected to provide further guidance on the implications of these updated results. The board maintains that its ongoing refinements to the Computer-Based Test (CBT) system, in place since 2013, are yielding positive outcomes in examination administration.
By Deborah Tolu-Kolawole
