UTME 2025: Are Apologies Simply Enough?
On nationwide TV, the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Ishaq Oloyede, broke down to tears after acknowledging technical errors that disrupted the Unified Tertiary and Matriculation Examination (UTME) outcomes of hundreds of faculty students in Nigeria. He admitted to the errors, apologised and promised that the affected college students would resit for the examination. For some, this used to be ample to solve the nationwide arena.
But used to be it?
Thousands and hundreds of candidates rob the UTME yearly. In 2025, over 2 million candidates registered for the examination. We are able to commence with Opesusi Faith Timilehin, who reportedly took her maintain existence after checking her outcome, which used to be lower than what she anticipated. Earlier, sooner than the outcomes hang been announced, JAMB released a statistical prognosis of the 2025 UTME, which showed that this 300 and sixty five days’s examination used to be essentially the most failed in historical previous. On social media, folk aired diversified factors accountable for this. Some blamed the industrial pickle the set aside inflation has made beforehand cheap protein cherish eggs, fish and others unaffordable. Some blamed the abysmal constructing of the academic plan in the nation, whereas some blatantly blamed the college students, striking forward that the college students aren’t any longer drawn to studying or reading, but rather making cash.
Nonetheless, now that the examination physique has acknowledged the technical error, what’s the comfort for Faith, who lost her existence which capability that of a technical error that might maybe presumably hang been averted with a venerable constructing? What’s the comfort for college students who might maybe presumably need read that the efforts they save into reading a big selection of books hang been relegated to a “generation drawn to increasing cash rather then reading?”
Apologies are accurate, but are they ample?
That is no longer a college hall miscommunication. It is a nationwide tragedy. And cherish any tragedy, the wretchedness doesn’t quit with a press conference or a public apology on nationwide tv. In a nation the set aside over 2 million college students register for the UTME every 300 and sixty five days, a glitch that invalidates hundreds of outcomes is no longer a minor error; it is a systemic failure. Professor Oloyede’s tears might maybe presumably need been true, but sincerity can not rewrite outcomes, resuscitate Faith, or erase the trauma that this generation of faculty students now carries.
Mediate of it cherish a surgical treatment.
Within the working room, a affected person lies start, susceptible, trusting that every video show is functioning, every application sterilised, and every pair of arms obvious. One error—a slipped hand, a energy outage, a miscalibrated machine—can payment a existence. When the household is instructed, no matter how remorseful the surgeon is, no matter how thorough the clarification, the outcome remains: someone is long previous. The related plot Faith is long previous. Gone because a technical error, cherish an imprecise incision, realized its plot into the very plan she depended on with her future.
Nigeria’s education plan does no longer accurate want a reform, it desires surgical treatment. A deep, in moderation carried out operation that strips away the extinct constructions and implants a purposeful, transparent and humane plan in its space. We can not proceed to gamble with the lives and futures of young Nigerians and cushion the aftermath with in moderation worded statements–in the occasion that they are in spite of every thing in moderation worded and no longer swept below the carpet of “Man proposes, God disposes.” (Whoever tweeted that desires to be dispossessed of their job, by the plot.)
The right kind arena goes beyond one examination physique. Whether the statistics hang been factual or no longer, the 2025 JAMB failure rate, tagged the worst in historical previous, finds a broken chain that runs from susceptible classrooms to underpaid lecturers, to a harsh economy that starves increasing minds of eating regimen. And yet, when these college students sit down for a nationwide exam that might maybe presumably decide their future, they’re met with malfunctioning pc systems, error-filled scripts, and an net that collapses mid-test. Then we remark them it’s their fault. That they’re lazy. That they’re unserious. That their generation glorious wants cash.
There desires to be accountability. No longer accurate apologies. No longer accurate inner audits and resit guarantees, but a review of the contracts awarded to tech carrier services, an independent investigation into the causes of the failure, and a public-facing file detailing corrective measures. In 2025, with the tools, minds, and cash Nigeria has, how will we silent permit a nationwide examination to be marred by technical disorders? If we proceed to treat errors cherish these as forgivable roam-ups, we are able to support counting losses, every considered and invisible.
God forbid we support burying college students.
