Regina Otokpa 
The mass failure trailing the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), has continued to generate discussions over the failure of government, school administrators, parents and students, to prioritise education.
The analysis of the result released by the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) on its social media handle indicated that 78.5 per cent representing 1.5 million of the 1.9 million candidates scored less than 200 out of 400.
Many Nigerians have attributed this year’s mass failure to several reasons, as they accuse all stakeholders of being responsible in different ways.
An educationist, Anthony Akpamson, said the result was the true reflection of the poor reading culture and some students spending their parents’ resources on examination malpractice.
He said: “It’s a collective shame but the result does not come as a surprise to me. A lot of the tutorial centres you see all around are deeply rooted in examination infractions.
“Some of our students pay heavily to get malpractice materials even from their schools.
“There are so many cases of impersonation, multiple registrations flying around every year.
“Some parents are party to this; they pay for special centres, preferring to follow shortcuts rather than embrace sound education and morals so they can brag about their children’s academic prowess.”
Akpamson also raised concerns over the poor IT preparation of students saying, “When schools are not IT compliant, how do you expect those students to sit for a CBT examination and record a good result?
“Phone is not a computer so we must not think that once they are sitting in front of the computer they know just how to operate it within the time allotted.”
Philip Umoru, a lecturer at the Nasarawa State University who said the result came as a shock, however said it wasn’t surprising given the poor attitude and investment to education in the country.
He blamed inadequate teaching and learning infrastructure, lack of proper discipline by parents and school administrators, poor teachers training and the social media for the woeful outing.
According to him, the results should be seen as a wakeup call for policy makers, school administrators and parents to double efforts and prioritise not just investments, but also the approach to education.
“Everybody has a role to play in addressing this problem. Government must undertake a deliberate and strategic investment in education, especially teachers training, ICT development and ensure quality reforms in our curriculum.
“Our school administrators and I mean school owners and teachers are money mongers.
“Rather than focus on building very intelligent, brilliant students, they are after how much they can make from parents.
“I can authoritatively tell you that some of them keep pushing their students to pass because of the freebies they get.
“Parents are also to blame for this. We no longer have time to check our children’s academic performance.
“Once we see the result we are okay with it. This is a wakeup call.
“We need to interrogate every result our children bring home so we can be sure they are really learning and not being assisted to move up the academic ladder.
“The major culprits in this woeful result are our students. Social media has not helped at all.
“Rather than study, we find them on Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. This is a sad development.
“Parents and schools can step in by enforcing discipline.”
The Proprietress, Gracefield International Schools, Mrs Obinna Valerie, who insisted that every school was out to get the best out of their students, said external factors such as timing and venue of examination; social media, consistent threats by JAMB and anxiety were possible reasons behind the mass failure.
She said: “Schools are really trying. I won’t be surprised if the majority of those students, if asked to sit for the same examination, score above 300.
“We agree something is wrong but I don’t agree it’s from the schools.”
A parent, Jocelyn Atache said moral decadence; over reliance on examination malpractice and poor preparation by the candidates were possible reasons behind the poor result.
“Students no longer read. I know how hard I get with my children to make sure they read.
“Our reading culture is very poor and social media has not helped. It’s worsening the situation.
“Children belong to WhatsApp groups, Tik Tok where examination questions are leaked, answers provided. It’s a disaster!
“It is nearly impossible for anyone who scored B’s & A’s in their O’level results without malpractice to score below 200 in JAMB.
President of the Congress of University Academics (CONUA) Niyi Sunmonu implored stakeholders in the education sector to see the woeful result as a wakeup call to the state and degree of academic rot in the Nigerian Education sector.
He described the result as a sobering reflection of the state of Nigeria’s basic and secondary education system.
