Over 11,000 Underage Candidates Registered for 2025 UTME, Says JAMB Registrar
The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has revealed that over 11,553 underage candidates have registered for the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
Oloyede disclosed this while inspecting the approved computer-based test centres in Lagos, where candidates are being registered. He stated that a total of 782,027 candidates have completed their registration over the past 10 days.
“Currently, we have registered 782,027 candidates, with 11,553 of them being underage. As we continue the registration process, the system is actively reporting from all over the country. Although we anticipate two million candidates, we are only on our 14th day of the process,” Oloyede shared. “By the end of the second week, we expect to have over one million registered candidates,” he added.
Oloyede noted that on the day of his inspection alone, 443 underage candidates were registered, with 18,813 registrations completed in the morning. He explained that the new registration system now allows JAMB to track and identify underage candidates, which could help understand their unique issues, or even recognize exceptional students who may still be underage.
“The trend of parents registering their underage children has become common, sometimes due to societal pressure or personal reasons,” Oloyede pointed out. “The registration process this year has been smooth, though some delays have been reported due to technical challenges, which we are actively addressing,” he added.
Despite some criticisms regarding the pace of registration, Oloyede emphasized that Nigerian students often expect immediate results, a demand that sometimes clashes with the need for a structured and regulated system. “In other countries, students handle their registration independently, but here, there are often expectations for assistance,” he said.
To mitigate issues, new measures have been implemented to ensure that candidates fully engage with the registration process, including the introduction of time limits to encourage students to read and understand the rules before confirming their registration.
“This year, we’ve registered more than 80,000 candidates per day, and even close to 100,000 candidates in a single day. Our daily target was initially 60,000, so we are ahead of schedule,” Oloyede concluded.
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