The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced it will reconduct the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) for candidates who were affected by technical errors in 157 centres in Lagos State and parts of the South-East.
This comes as a relief for the 379,997 students affected by the technical error and their families.
The re-examination is scheduled to begin on Friday, May 16, 2025, with affected candidates to be notified through text message.
JAMB disclosed that the affected candidates who sat for the UTME in any of the identified 157 malfunctioning centres out of 882 nationwide will be contacted directly by the Board.
“We have decided that all the candidates affected in the 157 centres out of 882 centres will be contacted to retake their examinations starting from Friday, May 16, 2025,” JAMB stated.
According to the Board, notifications will be sent through SMS, email, direct phone calls, and the candidates’ JAMB profiles.
Candidates are advised to reprint their examination slips to confirm new schedules.
Backstory
Nairametrics reported that the board confirmed that a significant number of candidates were affected by errors traced to “an omission in the examination items” across specific operational zones.
This was after intense public criticism and concerns raised by candidates and parents across Nigeria over the integrity of the 2025 UTME.
The Lagos operational zone, which includes Lagos State and parts of the South-East, saw the highest impact, with a total of 379,997 candidates compromised by the glitches.
Specifically, 65 centres in Lagos (206,610 candidates) and 92 centres in the Owerri zone (173,387 candidates) experienced technical failures that led to incomplete or malfunctioning exam content.
WAEC examination clash
Acknowledging that the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) is ongoing, JAMB said it had reached an understanding with the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to avoid timetable clashes.
“While not oblivious of the fact that WAEC examinations are ongoing, we have contacted WAEC and in an unprecedented show of solidarity, the Council has graciously decided to as much as possible accommodate us within the WAEC time-slot.”
To ease the burden, JAMB has facilitated the rescheduling of WAEC exams, particularly for Agricultural Science on Friday for affected candidates.
“Any candidate with a clash of timetable, particularly for Agricultural Science on Friday, would be rescheduled. However, we have endeavored to ensure that no such exist. Most, if not all, such candidates are scheduled for Saturday,” the board noted.
The Board reassured candidates that the overlap between UTME and WAEC examinations is unlikely to cause significant academic disruption. This is because the curriculum and prescribed texts for both exams are largely aligned.
Only the UTME’s unique reading text carries an additional 10 marks in the Use of English paper.
