Rot beneath the results
If there ever is a time to declare a state of emergency in our educational sector, it is now! The 2025 JAMB results are out, and the figures are horrifying. Out of over 1.9 million candidates, only a fraction managed to score above 200. What was once the median score is now a rare feat. […]
If there ever is a time to declare a state of emergency in our educational sector, it is now!
The 2025 JAMB results are out, and the figures are horrifying. Out of over 1.9 million candidates, only a fraction managed to score above 200. What was once the median score is now a rare feat. This is not just a mass failure. It is a mirror, brutal and honest, reflecting a nation that has lost its soul when it comes to education.
This year’s results are not just numbers. They are a national outcry. The failure is not JAMB’s. The failure is ours. The results are not an academic tragedy. They are a societal one.
Some people are trying to blame the early 6:30 a.m. examination time as the reason so many students failed. That is not only ridiculous; it is insulting to our collective intelligence. Yes, 6:30 is an unholy hour to expect teenagers to perform intellectual feats, but to claim that an early start led to this scale of collapse is a distraction. We are watching a generation drown. And while they gasp for breath, the society that should throw them lifelines instead hands them smartphones, gigabytes of data, and unlimited access to digital poison. Education is no longer a value. It is no longer a ladder. It is a joke, an afterthought in a world now ruled by the lowest forms of entertainment. The classroom is now an antique. The ring light is the new chalk. TikTok is the new textbook.
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We see it every day. We scroll past it. We laugh at it. But deep down, many of us know the truth; life, in this country, has been turned upside down. A young girl recently posted a list of Nigeria’s “greatest people” on social media. Not one inventor. Not one professor. Not one public servant of repute. All entertainers. That’s the reality we’ve created, where productivity is punished, and popularity is crowned.
The Ministry of Education keeps quiet. The state governments are absent. The federal government looks the other way. It is a country of ignored responsibilities. Until WAEC and NECO become digitised, just like JAMB’s CBT model, we will keep awarding false confidence to students who were never trained to succeed. And when JAMB eventually tests them with honesty, the masks fall off.
The government can intervene. In fact, it must intervene. Age-based restrictions on content are possible. Internet filters are possible. Educational redirection is possible. But nothing will change until those in power begin to see the collapse of education not as an abstract policy problem but as a national security threat.
Also, education must be made to look beautiful again. It must have aesthetics. It must be seen as the path to greatness. Right now, it looks like suffering. It looks like wasted effort. It looks like a dead end. Nobody wants to walk that road anymore. Not when the alternatives; loud, foolish, unproductive are packaged as success. We must change the narrative. If we do not rise to rescue education now, we won’t just lose a generation; we’ll bury the future with it.
Oladoja M.O writes from Abuja and can be reached at: [email protected]