More than 200,000 additional candidates have scored above 200 in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) following a resit organized by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to address technical and human errors that affected the initial test.
The results of the resit, released on Sunday, show that the number of candidates who scored below 200 decreased from over 1.5 million to 1,365,479.
This reflects a significant improvement in performance after the second round of testing.
JAMB had earlier released the original UTME results on May 9, 2025, revealing that a majority of the 1.9 million candidates failed to reach the 200 mark out of a possible 400.
The outcome led to widespread public concern and calls for an investigation.
In response, JAMB launched an internal review and discovered server issues and personnel-related faults, especially at centres located in Lagos and across the South-East.
Consequently, the board rescheduled the examination for 379,000 candidates from the affected regions.
With the new results now out, JAMB has confirmed that performance has improved compared to previous years. For instance, in 2025, 565,988 candidates — about 29.3 percent — scored 200 and above, a rise from 24 percent in 2024 and 23.36 percent in 2023.
Similarly, 117,373 candidates scored 250 or more this year, surpassing the 77,070 recorded in 2024 and 56,736 in 2023.
Despite these improvements, the majority of candidates — roughly 70.7 percent — still scored below 200, though this marks a slight improvement from previous years when the figure stood at 76 percent in 2024 and over 76 percent in 2023.
Year-on-year comparisons show varying trends in UTME performance. In 2021, only 13 percent of test-takers managed to score 200 and above, while in 2016, over 34 percent achieved this mark.
However, in 2025, participation increased to 1,931,467 candidates — all of whom now have their results available — compared to 1,842,364 in the previous year.
The ongoing improvement in high scores has been linked to better adaptation to the Computer-Based Test (CBT) system introduced in 2013 and recent efforts by JAMB to refine the exam process.
The board also confirmed that results for more than 41,000 underage candidates (those below age 16) and those who took part in the rescheduled exams have been fully released.
According to JAMB, the technical error during the first few days of the initial examination was caused by a server upgrade that interfered with the uploading of candidates’ answers.
The Registrar, uh Professor Ishaq Oloyede explained that the affected candidates sat their exams in 157 centres and were required to retake the test to ensure fairness and accuracy.
JAMB is expected to provide further updates on how this year’s results will affect admission into tertiary institutions across the country.
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