2025 UTME records best performance in 13 years despite technical glitches

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced that candidates’ performance in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) is the best in over a decade, even amid technical disruptions that led to a nationwide resit for affected candidates.

According to performance data released by the Board on Sunday, following the conclusion of the mop-up examination, 2025 marks the highest number of high scores since the Computer-Based Test (CBT) format was introduced in 2013.

This year, 17,025 candidates, representing 0.88% of those who sat the UTME, scored 300 and above, more than doubling the 8,401 candidates (0.46%) who scored in that range in 2024, and tripling the 5,318 (0.35%) recorded in 2023.

Comparison of UTME results since the inception of CBT in 2013

The release of these figures comes in the wake of public outcry and scrutiny over widespread technical issues during the 2025 UTME, which disrupted testing at over 150 centres. JAMB later admitted that nearly 380,000 candidates were affected and organised a resit exam starting May 16.

Despite these setbacks, JAMB maintains that this year’s results reflect a marked improvement in student preparedness and exam integrity.