The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has admitted to have goofed in the results of some candidates who took the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME).
Penpushing reports that the board Registrar Prof Is-haq Oloyede, admitted the errors on Wednesday while speaking on the outcome of the review and apologised to the candidates, explaining that the board has decided that all candidates affected in 157 out of 882 centres will be contacted to retake their examinations starting Friday, May 16, 2025
“So, I appeal to the candidates and those affected by the error of our system to accept this explanation as the truth of the matter without embellishment, Please. I apologise and take full responsibility, not just in words,” he said.
Penpushing further reports that Oloyede assured that affected candidates would be contacted by the board through text messages sent to their registered phone numbers, email addresses, profiles, and phone calls.
The registrar directed the candidates to reprint their examination slips for the rescheduled examination date, adding that the board has contacted the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), which is currently holding its West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE), to allow the board some slots for candidates to take the examinations,
Penpushing also reports that Oloyede disclosed that West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has agreed, stressing that any candidate with a clash of timetable, particularly for Agricultural Science on Friday, would be rescheduled
“However, we have endeavoured to ensure that no such exist. Most, if not all, such candidates are scheduled for Saturday. Fortunately, the prescribed texts for SSCE are also the prescribed texts for UTME, apart from the reading text of the UTME, which carries just 10 marks in our Use of English test’, he stated
Penpushing reports that Oloyede, however, explained that the errors happened in 157 centres – 65 centres in the Lagos zone and 92 centres in the Owerri zone, while Lagos zone comprises only Lagos State, Owerri zone comprises the five South-East states of Abia, Enugu, Imo, Ebonyi and Anambra.
The registrar explained that while 206,610 candidates were affected in the 65 centres in Lagos zone, 173,387 candidates were affected in 92 centres in Owerri zone, stating that the reviewers examined samples from across the country, but no sign of any abnormality has been detected in any centre other than the ones mentioned.
Penpushing further reports that he equally explained that Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) groups the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) into ‘KAD vehicle’ and ‘LAG vehicle’ to manage operations efficiently and in a balanced way.
The Professor stated that KAD vehicle comprises all South-South states and most Northern states except Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, Niger, Kogi, and Abuja, adding that LAG vehicle comprises all states in the South-West and South-East as well as Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, Niger, Kogi, and Abuja.
Penpushing also reports that he explained that the mixed grouping is deliberate and is meant to prevent any regional bias in how the examinations are organised across regions, pointing out that after the mock examinations, the board noticed that the examination questions were not properly shuffled in the LAG category.
The registrar stated that the board shuffles questions so candidates have different questions, which makes it harder to copy or cheat, and that the board corrected this problem and tested the fix ahead of the actual Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME).
Penpushing reports that, however, Oloyode said on second day which was Friday April 25, 2025 the actual Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME), the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) found that there were omissions in the LAG category.
The registrar said corrections were made instantly and tested on Saturday, Sunday and Monday before they were applied after 12 a.m. on Tuesday, explaining that was why all the examinations from Tuesday till the end of Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) had no problem
Penpushing further reports that he said to correct and re-upload the results from LAG for the glitch from Thursday to Monday, the service providers concerned with the ‘LAG vehicle’ were deployed to effect the patch.
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) boss said, unfortunately, the errors were still found in two locations –Lagos zone and Owerri Zone–, resulting in errors in the candidates’ results.
“In clear terms, in the process of rectifying the issue, the technical personnel deployed by the Service Provider for LAG (Lagos and South-east zones) inadvertently failed to update some of the delivery servers. Regrettably, this oversight went undetected prior to the release of the results’, he said
Penpushing also reports that it is recalled that the board on Tuesday, commenced the review of the candidates’ results with some stakeholders after widespread complaints of low scores by candidates who have a track record of better performance, with a total of 379,997 candidates across the 157 centres in Lagos and the South-east schedule to retake their examinations.
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