The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has officially confirmed that a technical error affected the results of nearly 380,000 candidates who participated in this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). The Board has assured that all affected students will have an opportunity to retake the exam at no cost.
The announcement came after an emergency technical review session held at the JAMB headquarters in Abuja, chaired by the Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede. The meeting was convened in response to widespread public concern and complaints following the release of UTME results last Friday, which recorded an unusually high rate of poor performances nationwide.
What Really Happened?
According to the findings presented at the review session, the issue stemmed from a critical software update that was not properly deployed across all CBT (Computer-Based Test) centres.
Specifically:
• A system upgrade designed to enhance exam security and answer validation was successfully installed in some regions, but left out in others.
• As a result, 157 centres across Lagos and the South-East continued running an older version of the software that could not process and score answers correctly.
• This directly affected an estimated 379,997 candidates, who unknowingly sat for exams on outdated systems that failed to record or evaluate their responses accurately.
How the Problem Was Detected
To verify the issue, JAMB partnered with Educare, an external technology firm that had independently collected data from over 18,000 candidates. After reviewing and cross-checking the information, it was discovered that more than 14,000 of the faulty records came from the affected regions. This provided strong evidence that the error was systemic and not isolated.
What JAMB Is Doing About It
At a press briefing later in the afternoon, Professor Oloyede addressed the public with a sincere apology and outlined the next steps:
• All impacted students will be allowed to rewrite their exams free of charge.
• JAMB has reached an agreement with the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to ensure the new UTME dates do not conflict with the ongoing SSCE exams.
• Affected candidates are advised to reprint their exam slips from Friday, May 17, to access their updated schedule and centre details.
Reforms and Safeguards
In the wake of this discovery, JAMB has committed to implementing the following measures:
• Stricter checks and validations before each exam cycle to ensure all centres are running the same approved software.
• Inclusion of independent technical observers to monitor future exam deployments.
• Greater transparency, including readiness to release anonymized data when needed to maintain public trust.
As part of its public communication, JAMB also released a formal statement titled “Man Proposes, God Disposes”, with a special section tagged “Appeal, Appreciation, and Apology.” The document acknowledged the hardship caused to students and families and reaffirmed the Board’s commitment to fairness and integrity.
Summary at a Glance:
• Nearly 380,000 students sat for the UTME using outdated scoring systems.
• All will resit the exam for free, with dates to be announced by May 17.
• The issue was caused by human oversight, not fraud or systemic failure.
This latest development offers relief to thousands of students and their families, many of whom were left confused and disheartened by last week’s result announcement. While the situation has raised serious questions about exam management, JAMB’s willingness to admit the error and take immediate corrective action has been widely welcomed.
The rescheduled exam is expected to take place within weeks, and the Board says it is already working round the clock to prevent such lapses in the future.
