Kayode Olanrewaju 
…says exceptionally gifted, brilliant underage candidates free to register
Following the seamless and smooth process of registration of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) as recorded in the last two weeks of the exercise, the Registrar of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof Ishaq Oloyede, has foreclosed any plan and decision to extend the registration deadline.
The Registrar, who disclosed this while monitoring the registration exercise in some Computer-Based-Test (CBT) Centres in Lagos, however, advised parents and candidates not to expect any extension of the registration deadline as earlier fix.
“Extension of registration deadline for what, it will not happen,” he stated, saying: “The system is not slow. For me, this will be the first time JAMB will be registering over 80,000 candidates a day, and even Thursday we registered close to 100,000 candidates.
With the rate at which we are going, we will finish long before the closing date. Oloyede, who said such would not be necessary, explained further that the examination body would not extend the registration deadline for candidates sitting for this year’s UTME nationwide. Addressing journalists at the JKK CBT Centre, Ikorodu Road, Anthony, Lagos, during the monitoring exercise, hinted that approximately 2 million candidates are expected to register for UTME between Monday, February 3, when the exercise commenced and Monday, March 3, when the registration exercise is expected to close.
He insisted that the five-week registration window with a daily registration target of about 60,000 candidates, and which has surpassed that figure to about 90,000 registered candidates daily, would be sufficient enough not to warrant any extension. As of Friday last week monitoring, no fewer than 782,027 candidates, the Registrar stated, had registered across the 856 designated accredited centres nationwide, but noted that no fewer than 11,553 of the candidates are underage, who are below the official minimum age requirement of 16 years for university admission in the country.
Some of the CBT Centres visited by the Registrar during the monitoring exercise are JKK House CBT, Ikorodu Road, Anthony; Yaba College of Technology CBT, YABATECH; Human Development Initiatives CBT in Iwaya, and Yaba LCDA e-Library CBT, Herbert Macaulay Way, Yaba. Oloyede, who expressed satisfaction with the smooth registration process recorded so far across the country in the almost two weeks, noted that JAMB had never had a registration process as seamless, fast, and efficient as this year’s exercise.
He said: “Previously, we usually had and witnessed cases of network failure, power outage, and other technical issues. But, this year the process has been very fast and smooth, and we expect it to continue this way until the end of the registration exercise. “That is why we have already as of this afternoon registered 782,027 candidates nationwide within just 10 days, which is less than two weeks of the five-week registration period we set as our deadline for UTME registration this year.”
The Registrar noted that this year marks the first time that JAMB has registered up to 90,000 candidates per day, with the figure increasing daily, which means that JAMB would have completed the registration process long before the deadline. On the underage candidates, the Registrar reiterated that “while there is an official minimum age for university admission, underage candidates who are exceptionally gifted and brilliant are allowed to register for the examination as long as they can prove their capability.
According to him, the new policy has left the age limit for university admission at 16 years as it was before, even as it was the case in 2024 admission. He said: “But, now we have created opportunities for exceptionally under age candidates; those who are not up to 16 years, but who are exceptionally brilliant and gifted. “We have made a mockery of age limitations for university admission in Nigeria, but in other places, it is not like that.
There are always exceptional students; perhaps one in a million. But no matter how few they are, we should not close the door against them, which is why we allow them to register. “Perhaps such brilliant or gifted children will be 30 or 40 at most in the entire nation. We said if they are underage and have something exceptional, then they can register for our examination. “Again, those who are underage or overage who are not ready for admission, but they just want to try because of the CBT mode of examination, we have also created an avenue for them.”
This is as he explained that JAMB permits candidates who are not yet ready for admission because they lack their O’Level results, but wish to familiarise themselves with the Computer Based Test (CBT) format to register for the examination. “So, we don’t deny such candidates the opportunity to register. Again, we have those we are registering free. We refer to them as Trial Testing Candidates, who are not paying any money to JAMB for registration.
They only pay N1,000 for the book they are being given; N700 to the CBT Centre; N1,500 to the centre where they will write the exam and N300 to the bank as the commission. Oloyede said that about 523 “trial testing candidates” across the country have been so far registered, even as he called them realists, who know that they are underage and not ready for admission now; and that was why we made it free for them. He noted that the underage candidates, who are registering for the UTME are merely wasting JAMB’s money, time and resources, as it would be better if they wait for their time. The Registrar, who also pointed out that JAMB had blocked all loopholes of extortion or exploitation of candidates, expressed worry about how some parents still allow some private schools to exploit them.
