JAMB Says Only Resit Scores Will Count for Affected UTME Candidates
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has made it clear that only the scores from the recently conducted resit Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) will be used for affected candidates, not their original scores.
According to JAMB’s Public Communication Adviser, Fabian Benjamin, candidates cannot choose between the two results. He explained that the initial UTME scores have been voided and replaced with the new ones from the resit.
“You can’t have two results. One must be withdrawn — that means the old result has been withdrawn,” he said.
This clarification comes after several parents raised concerns. Some said their children performed better in the first exam and wanted to know if they could still use those higher scores. One parent mentioned that her daughter scored above 200 in the first exam but fell below 200 in the resit, asking if the better score could be used.
JAMB had to conduct a resit exam for 379,000 candidates across Lagos and Southeast states due to major issues, including technical and human errors, that disrupted the original UTME. The resit results were released on Sunday.
The new results showed significant improvement. About 200,000 more candidates scored 200 and above in the resit, increasing the total to 565,988, which is 29.3% of the 1.9 million candidates who took the exam. This marks an increase from 24% in 2024 and 23.36% in 2023.
However, most candidates — 1,365,479 (70.7%) — still scored below 200. Though not ideal, this was a slight improvement from the previous result released on May 9, where over 1.5 million candidates fell below the 200 mark.
The 2025 UTME recorded a historic number of candidates — 1,931,467 — the highest since the CBT format was introduced in 2013.
On social media, several candidates expressed excitement about their improved scores. Alex Onyia, CEO of Educare, shared testimonials, including one from a candidate who moved from a score of 155 to 341.
Statistics also showed better performance overall. In 2025, 117,373 candidates scored 250 and above, compared to 77,070 in 2024 and 56,736 in 2023. Furthermore, 8,401 candidates scored 300 and above in 2025 — the highest in recent years.
JAMB stated that the resit results offer a more accurate and fair assessment of the affected candidates’ performance after correcting the earlier problems.
