Every year, millions of Nigerian youths brace themselves for one of the most consequential exams of their academic lives—the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB). For many young Nigerians, this examination marks a hopeful ticket to higher education, and a foundation upon which many dreams are built. But in 2025, that rite of passage was overshadowed by an error that left hundreds of thousands of students broken, parents angry, and the nation questioning the integrity of one of its most critical institutions.
This year’s UTME quickly made headlines, not for record-breaking success stories, but for mass failure on an unprecedented scale. When the 2025 UTME result was released, data revealed that over 1.5million candidates out of the 1,955,069 million candidates, whose results were released by the board, scored less than 200 marks. Students who had studied tirelessly, sacrificing sleep and personal time, were left devastated by scores that didn’t reflect their efforts or abilities. While many blamed the students for not preparing enough and for engaging in meaningless activities on social media, others thought there was a glitch.
It didn’t take long before public outcry swelled, lawsuits were filed, and a heart-wrenching tragedy emerged: a young girl, crushed by the result she received, reportedly took her own life. A thorough technical review later confirmed what many had feared, the system had failed them. According to JAMB, a critical server patch meant to support a new exam marking system had not been deployed uniformly. While servers in Kaduna functioned correctly, those in Lagos and the South-East covering 157 exam centres ran outdated code that could not process the new logic.
The result? Nearly 380,000 candidates had their scores incorrectly computed, leading to widespread invalidations. The board, in collaboration with an independent tech team, uncovered the glitch after analysing over 15,000 response logs. In essence, the system marked students based on outdated algorithms. This wasn’t a case of poor preparation or laziness; it was a grave case of technical mismanagement.
At a press briefing following the discovery, JAMB Registrar Professor Ishaq Oloyede, visibly shaken, issued a public apology. In a rare moment of vulnerability in Nigerian public service, he choked up while accepting responsibility for the error. “I am sorry,” he said, repeatedly. “Please forgive us.” Civil society groups, parents, students, and education stakeholders began demanding more than an apology. Some called for Professor Oloyede’s resignation. Others insisted that an independent investigation be launched to hold those responsible accountable. “You don’t make nearly 400,000 young people suffer and then just say sorry,” one parent posted online.
In a society where a single exam can define a person’s future, this tragedy sparked a broader conversation. There is a fundamental expectation that national examinations, especially ones as decisive as the UTME must be administered with uncompromising accuracy
What happened in the 2025 UTME is more than a technical glitch, it is a cautionary tale of institutional complacency. It raises urgent questions about infrastructure, competency, and the human cost of carelessness in high-stakes systems.
Even after admitting the error and announcing a resit for affected students, many believe the damage has already been done. Time, emotional stability, confidence, and for some, life itself which cannot be restored with a simple retake.
How Did We Get Here?
Nigeria’s over-reliance on centralised digital systems in education, while a step forward in terms of innovation, is not immune to error. The problem is not technology itself, but how it is deployed, managed, and monitored. The 2025 UTME glitch is a classic example of what happens when critical updates are treated casually and technical oversight is poor.
Moreover, the discrepancy in server updates between regions reflects a deeper structural imbalance one that goes beyond education and seeps into every layer of national governance. Why were the Lagos and South-East clusters overlooked? Why were checks and real-time monitoring not in place before the exam results were released? These are questions that demand answers, not just apologies.
While JAMB has promised to reinforce deployment validation and introduce real-time monitoring mechanisms, it’s clear that trust has been severely eroded. Rebuilding that trust will take more than promises, it will take policy changes, transparent systems, and a sincere effort to humanise the education process.
One proposed solution is the decentralisation of exam management and result processing to allow for more local oversight. Others have suggested involving neutral third-party auditors in all future high-stakes examinations. More importantly, Nigeria must develop a system that doesn’t place all of a young person’s future on the outcome of a single test. The Ministry of Education, alongside JAMB, must also take this as a wake-up call to embed emotional and academic counselling into the UTME process especially for underage candidates, who are often overlooked despite facing extreme pressure.
The 2025 UTME saga is not just a story of computer glitches or technical mismanagement. It is a mirror reflecting the broader dysfunction in Nigeria’s education system, one where students are asked to carry too much, while the system does too little to protect them. It is a wake-up call not just for examination bodies but for the entire country. At stake is not just the credibility of an exam board, but the hopes of a generation. We must come to terms with the fact that our children’s futures are not just determined by what they learn, but by how fairly and accurately they are assessed.
