JAMB mass failure: Dilemma of a nation

Nigeria has just recorded one of the worst JAMB examination results since this body commenced operations in 1978. However, the trouble is not just that we recorded this level of failure; our real problem is that those who should know better are blaming different factors for the show of shame. Immediately after the Joint Admissions […]

Nigeria has just recorded one of the worst JAMB examination results since this body commenced operations in 1978. However, the trouble is not just that we recorded this level of failure; our real problem is that those who should know better are blaming different factors for the show of shame.

Immediately after the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board released the disastrous results of its 2025 UTME, the man who superintends over the nation’s educational sector was the first to proffer a reason for the calamity that befell the country. Dr Tunji Alausa, the Minister of Education, told a bewildered nation that the mass failure resulted from an anti-cheating system adopted by the ministry.

Nigerians now know better. A few days later, the man who heads JAMB wept in front of the nation as he took the blame for the national embarrassment. Professor Ishaq Oloyede, the JAMB’s registrar, took the blame personally and apologised for the outcome. He attributed it to a technical glitch, the catch-all term that sums up the malfunctioning of a technical system. This could be caused by bad servers or an intrusion, such as the activities of hackers.

This is the dilemma that Nigeria finds itself in, perhaps without realising this. Here is a serious national crisis, with the minister supervising the sector hailing it as an achievement. At the same time, the man on the ground, as Nigerians would say, the man who could be rightly described as the Executive Registrar of JAMB, is mourning over the same outcome.

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There is no basis for celebrating an examination with a total mark of 400 in which only 12.03 per cent of the candidates scored half of the marks and above. More than half of the candidates (50.9%) scored between 160 and 199.

The question now is: What caused the mass failure? In a situation where the non-executive chairman and executive vice chairman are blaming different factors for their company’s disastrous outing in a year, there is a real challenge for that company. This is what has happened between the minister and the JAMB’s registrar.

The fact that both gave conflicting reasons for the poor results shows that there was no communication between them before the minister spoke. President Bola Tinubu appointed Dr Alausa on October 23, 2024, as part of his first cabinet reshuffle. It’s certain, therefore, that he is still learning on the job. This made it imperative therefore that he should have consulted with the registrar first, to get Oloyede’s immediate words on the case. Indeed, how much the minister knows or understands of the workings of JAMB as an institution under his ministry is now a matter of guesswork. Had he been following the developments in this institution, he probably would not have rushed to that conclusion.

And, if we may ask, what recent anti-cheating measures did the minister refer to? Nigerians will surely be interested in such measures being taken by the authorities because every well-meaning Nigerian wants our educational system to return to its glorious days. They want to know when such measures were deployed that they could have produced such immediate effects, even to the extent of threatening admissions into the nation’s tertiary institutions this year.

This ugly incident has thrown up fundamental issues that now demand urgent attention in the context of Nigeria’s march into the future. In a world where nations are now differentiated by the depth of their educational system, Nigeria cannot continue to dither, deceiving itself. This is not just a challenge to the education sector. It goes beyond one sector. It is a systemic bug that has reduced both the efficiency and effectiveness of Nigeria’s policy framing process. Policies are being designed and implemented without clearly defined objectives and operational frames – who’s to implement, when, and how?

Measures designed to stop cheating in JAMB examinations would be commendable if they were preceded by measures to improve the teaching and learning processes in our secondary schools. Besides, such measures would achieve better results and be well received if they were nuanced within an educational system primed to produce high flyers.

The 2025 mass failure and the differing explanations from the ministry (JAMB is part of the ministry) speak of a nation unable to agree on the reasons behind the daunting challenges that confront it. They portray a nation in dilemma and at the crossroads.

While JAMB has conducted a rescheduled examination for some of the candidates, the damage done to its image remains and will probably take time to heal. Those who failed (the majority) called for a cancellation of the results. On this, JAMB found itself in a tight situation; an outright cancellation of the results was impossible because the minority favoured would protest.  Besides, many of the candidates who repeated now wonder if the same standard applies to all candidates.

Whichever way the debate goes, the more fundamental question must be answered. What caused the disaster? Was it a case of one failure (of the system) producing more failure (of the students)? Was it sabotage? Was it a mere system failure? The true answer lies somewhere around this axis.