Thousands of students who took the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) are preparing to sue the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), claiming the test was plagued by technical issues and incomplete questions.
JAMB recently revealed that more than 1.5 million of the 1.9 million candidates scored below 200 out of 400, sparking nationwide concern.
The Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, claimed the poor results reflected the success of anti-malpractice measures. But students and parents aren’t convinced.
Education advocate and CEO of Educare, Alex Onyia, announced on Sunday that a case would be filed at the Federal High Court on Monday.
He said over 8,000 students had submitted complaints, demanding that JAMB release full marking details so they can verify their results.
“Currently, we have 8,391 students who have sent in their complaints regarding the glitches in the JAMB 2025 exam,” Onyia posted on his X (formerly Twitter) page, @winexv.
“There is ample evidence to prove that JAMB’s system was inefficient, thereby causing serious harm to these students’ mental health.”
He said the goal of the legal action is for students to see their full mark sheets, including what they got wrong, the correct answers, and to have a way to contest the scores.
“The demand is for JAMB to show all the students their mark sheets to view their results—what they failed, the correct answers, and a seamless way to dispute it. The destinies of these students are at stake,” he added.
The controversy follows JAMB’s release of the 2025 UTME results last Friday.
Many parents and students have claimed the low scores were not due to poor performance, but system failures.
A candidate who wrote the exam in Abuja said some of her Use of English questions were missing.
“During the examination, for my Use of English, I noticed that some of my questions were missing. I raised the alarm, and I wasn’t the only one with the issue. When my result came out, I scored 170. JAMB has not addressed the missing questions.”
Another candidate who scored 287 last year was shocked to get 173 this time.
“Last year I scored 287, this year I got 173. Many others who wrote on the same day complained that their English questions were incomplete. This result is not mine,” she said.
Parents are also speaking out. One said, “We demand a remark from JAMB. These are exceptional students scoring below 200.
“Many complained of incomplete questions and other technical issues. JAMB has said nothing. This cannot be swept under the rug.”
As of the time of filing this report, JAMB has not released any formal statement responding to these allegations.
KanyiDaily recalls that JAMB also announced that the results of 39,834 candidates are being withheld due to suspected exam malpractice.