The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced that it will conduct an additional mop-up examination for candidates who missed the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
JAMB Registrar, Professor Is-haq Oloyede, said that the board would accommodate the estimated 5.6 per cent of candidates who missed the examination by organising a special mop-up exercise.
“Normally, we hold one mop-up nationwide for those with one issue or the other. But this time, we are creating a new mop-up,” Oloyede said.
“Even those who missed the earlier examination due to absence, we will extend this opportunity to them.
”It is not that we are doing something extraordinary; in class, you make up an examination when students miss it for one reason or the other; we just don’t allow abuse of that,” he said.
Oloyede clarified that UTME is a placement test and not an achievement test. “The purpose of the examination is to rank candidates for available spaces in institutions and not to measure intelligence or overall academic potential,” he said.
“High UTME score is not the sole determinant of admission, adding that combined performance, including post-UTME scores and school assessments, could significantly affect a candidate’s ranking,” Oloyede said.
Oloyede rejected comments suggesting that the administrative failure was due to incompetence or ethnic bias.
“I want to say this clearly, particularly because I accepted responsibility, not because I do not know how to do the work. “No conspiracy theory is relevant to this case, ” he said.
Oloyede urged stakeholders to stop ethnic profiling in the education sector, saying that many criticisms of JAMB’s operations were rooted in ignorance.
He commended his team’s efforts and appreciated the resilience shown by candidates despite various challenges.
