More than 11,000 underage candidates have registered for the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, disclosed this during an inspection of approved computer-based test centers in Lagos on Friday. He noted that out of 782,027 candidates registered in the last 10 days, 11,553 were underage.
Oloyede explained that the registration process, which began two weeks ago, has been smooth so far. He said, “Now, we have registered 782,027, and 11,553 of them are underage. So, you can see that as we are registering, the system is reporting from all over the country. Out of the expected two million candidates, we’re not yet at the 14th day. Monday will mark our 14th day. So, in two weeks, we would have completed about half of our registration process, and by that time, we expect to have over one million candidates registered.”
The JAMB registrar also shared that on Friday alone, 443 underage candidates were registered out of 18,813 candidates who completed their registration that morning. He noted that the board has introduced a new system to identify and track underage candidates. “This will help us understand their issues and even identify those who might be genuinely gifted but still underage,” he said.
Oloyede pointed out a growing trend of parents enrolling their children early for the examination. He said, “It has become a common thing now, where parents, whether mothers or fathers, are registering their underage children, sometimes due to pressure or other reasons.”
While the registration process has seen significant progress, Oloyede acknowledged some delays and technical challenges. He noted that measures have been put in place to address these issues. “You are here. You were here last year. See if you can find any power outages, network failures, and so forth. I just heard recently that due to the technical measures put in place this year, things are a bit slow,” he said.
Despite the delays, Oloyede expressed optimism about the progress made so far. He said, “This is the first time that we have been registering 80,000-plus. Yesterday, we registered close to 100,000 across the country. And we have budgeted for 60,000 per day. That’s what we use in our planning. But from the third day, we started 80,000, 90,000 per day. So, which means we will finish long before the time.”
To ensure candidates fully engage with the registration process, JAMB has introduced new measures. Oloyede explained, “What we do is that we put some safety valves into it. For example, for a candidate who is registered, we expect him to read certain rules. Before he will say, I agree. In the past, once he said, I agree, it goes. But we have now put a time limit. A time-space that whether he likes it or not, he must read because the system will not go until that time elapses.”
Oloyede also addressed the attitude of some candidates towards the registration process. He said, “Even when we have engaged people to be doing the enrollment for them, something they are supposed to do on their own, they are even not attentive.”
