The Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Olatunji Alausa, has commended the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), for the seamless conduct of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) which according to him, meets all international standards.
This was as the minister disclosed that the West African Examination Council (WAEC) and National Examinations Council (NECO) would partially adopt the Computer Based Test (CBT) model starting with the objective part of examinations by November 2025, and fully adopt CBT for both objective and essay by May/June 2026.
Alausa on Monday monitored the ongoing UTME in some centres and saw first hand, how JAMB was digitally monitoring the examinations nationwide from its control room in real time, amongst other great innovations at the JAMB headquarters.
Addressing newsmen after the monitoring exercise, the minister who was satisfied with the successes recorded by JAMB, said the use of Computer Based Test (CBT) as adopted by the Board, has helped in addressing the issue of examination malpractice.
He said: “I went to several CBT centers and the team at JAMB also took me around their digital operation from their control room to how exams are being monitored all over the country. I must tell you I am extremely impressed.
“The way JAMB is conducting its annual exam meets all international benchmark. It’s an exam that is based on full proof for people to cheat. So this is an exam that is done, monitored, coordinated with the highest level of integrity and I’m happy that we’re able to do this in Nigeria.
“We have a good country and with the precedent that we have now, for example, that puts so much emphasis on human capital development. When I say human capital development in areas of education, health, and social protection, our President is working hard to fix all facets of the economy.”
Impressed by JAMB’s ability to control and contain examination malpractice using the CBT model, he said, “We’re going to get WAEC and NECO by November of this year to also start their objective exam on CBT.
“By the 2026 exams which will come up in May/June, both the objectives and the essay will be fully on CBT. That is how we can eliminate exam malpractices. We want our children to study and not go ahead and perfect way of cheating.
“When some students cheat during the exams, it disincentivizes the hardworking one. If you’re working hard for an exam and you see that people are getting leaked questions, you will also be bad and that’s what we want to eliminate completely.
Asked if WAEC and NECO will be able to cope with such task given the manner of their examinations, the minister responded, “JAMB conducts exams to about 2.2 million people across the country, is 100% CBT. The annual number of people that enroll for WAEC is about 1.8 million people, and also for NECO.
“So if we can conduct CBT-based exam for 2 million people, if JAMB can do that, I see no reason why WAEC cannot do the same thing, and also NECO do the same thing. I know they have other components in the exams. They have the practical, they have essay, and the objective part of the exam.”
Speaking further, the minister noted that he was awaiting submission of the report and recommendations from the Prof. Oloyede led committee on monitoring of exams quality by the end of May.
“They’ve been tasked to really decipher an examination process that includes all the exam we do at all levels of our school and come up with expansive recommendation on how we can maintain the highest quality of examinations that meets any standard compared to anywhere in the world.
“I’m hopeful, I’m awaiting those reports. But ahead of me getting those reports, I’ve mandated both the West African Examination Council, WAEC, and the National Examination Council, NECO, to start implementing computer-based exam from the November exams of 2025.”
Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede has said by the end of Monday, only about 40,000 to 50,0000 out of the over 2 million candidates who registered for the examinations, would be left to write the UTME which comes to an end on Tuesday, nationwide.
“We have covered over 1,600,000 plus now. And we have less than 600,000. By the end of today, there will just be 40,000, 50,000 that will be rounding off tomorrow.”
Oloyede who said the 2025 UTME was one of the Board’s best examinations so far, however criticised those complaining about the timing for examinations, especially the expected arrival of the first session candidates by 6:30 am to enable them undergo verification exercise before commencement of the examination proper by 8am.
“We have always started our exam at 8 o’clock. The first session is 8 o’clock. The second session, 10.30, the third session, 1pm and the fourth session at 3.30pm but every reasonable person will know that these children are young and you need to let them know that they don’t get there at the point of 8. They have some preliminary things to do.
“There are 250 of them (per session) we must check their papers so we expect them to do that for about 45 minutes so if we ask these children to arrive at the center at 6.30. I don’t know if anybody can say that, oh, my own child arrived at 7.30 and they sent him back. But should we tell them 7.30? How many of them will miss the exam? But you have this mob mentality. When you have people who have no job, they will throw something to people and people will be discussing without even finding out.
“We start our exam just like any work day at 8 a.m and even in their school, they start school at 8 o’clock so what is bad in fixing our exam for 8 o’clock and asking the children to arrive so that we can screen 250 of them. And these are just candidates for the first session.”
Oloyede who drew attention to failure of some parents and candidates to get the venue of examination correctly, gave an instance where a candidate who requested to write in Katsina town was aggrieved he was sent to Funtua however, the candidates venue of examination was actually Dr. Funtua CBT centre in Katsina town.
While noting that the Board was not in a hurry to release results, the Registrar said unverified candidates would be investigated even as he disclosed that the over 40 persons in police custody thus far for impersonation must be prosecuted.
Oloyede insisted that candidates who missed the 2025 UTME would not be given another chance to write saying, “If you are going to UK and you miss the flight, will you tell the plane to come back?”
