Following the resit of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), over 200,000 additional candidates have now scored above the 200 mark, according to the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
The resit was conducted after the Board identified technical and human errors that affected the initial exam. The errors, which compromised results at 157 centres across Lagos and the South-East, prompted JAMB to organise a makeup test for 379,000 affected candidates.
Results released on Sunday revealed that 1,365,479 candidates — or 70.7% of the total 1.9 million who sat for both the main and resit exams — scored below 200. However, this marks an improvement compared to the original results released on May 9, where over 1.5 million candidates had scored below 200.
JAMB stated that the resit led to a significant number of candidates improving their scores, with about 200,000 crossing the 200 mark after previously falling short. The Board described the new results as the best performance since it adopted the Computer-Based Test (CBT) format in 2013.
In total, 1,931,467 results were released in 2025, representing 100% of registered candidates — an increase from 1,842,364 in 2024, reflecting growing participation in the annual exam.
The data also showed a rise in higher scorers:
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117,373 candidates (6.08%) scored 250 and above, up from 77,070 (4.18%) in 2024 and 56,736 (3.73%) in 2023.
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565,988 candidates (29.3%) scored 200 and above, compared to 439,961 (24%) in 2024 and 355,689 (23.36%) in 2023.
Despite these gains, the majority still scored below the average mark. The 70.7% of candidates scoring below 200 in 2025 reflects a slight improvement from 76% in 2024 and 76.64% in 2023.
Year-by-year comparisons continue to show fluctuations in candidate performance. For example, only 168,650 candidates (13%) scored 200 and above in 2021, while in 2016, 568,847 (34%) achieved that range.
JAMB has attributed recent improvements to its ongoing reforms and updates to the CBT system. The Board is expected to release further guidance regarding the impact of these results on the 2025 tertiary admissions process.
The results of over 41,000 underage candidates and the 379,775 who took the rescheduled exam in affected centres were also released. JAMB clarified that while results for underage candidates would be made available, those who didn’t meet admission requirements would not be eligible, in line with their registration agreements.
In a statement, JAMB acknowledged that the resit helped uncover troubling practices by some candidates and school or centre proprietors, contributing to the irregularities experienced during the original UTME.
With the updated results, the number of candidates scoring above 200 now stands at 565,988, up from around 365,000, while those scoring below 200 are now 1.3 million, down from over 1.5 million.
