Out of nearly two million candidates who took part in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), a staggering majority scored below the 200-mark benchmark. According to the data released on Monday by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), only 420,415 out of 1,955,069 candidates were able to score above 200.
The breakdown of the results further revealed that 4,756 candidates achieved scores above 320, while another 7,658 scored between 300 and 319. This means that a very small percentage of students reached the highest performance bracket in the exam, which serves as the key entry test for admission into Nigerian universities and other tertiary institutions.
JAMB noted that it had granted 40,247 underage candidates permission to sit for the examination in order to allow them to showcase their academic strengths.
However, only 467 of these candidates, representing just 1.16%, scored high enough to be considered as having demonstrated exceptional academic ability under JAMB’s criteria. The board also noted that the remaining part of the evaluation for these underage candidates would take place in three more stages, which are yet to be completed.
