Mass resit ordered: JAMB admits error in 2025 UTME

Guardian Nigeria

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00:00DAMS 2025 UTME glitch has forced over 379,000 students to have a receipt and these have sparked

00:08nationwide concern. With us as Mr. Alex Onyea, CEO Educator, he will be breaking down what went

00:15wrong and what's the way forward. I am Timmy Tayo, Olumofe. Welcome to Guardian Talks.

00:20All right, so to begin with, can you just tell us what's your assessment of the scale

00:36and impact of this 2025 jam glitch on students and the education system at large?

00:43I think it's too early for me to be able to make any form of conclusions going to the

00:48fact that we experienced major disaster in this year's jam. So the results will be out,

00:54the new results will be out from Wednesday and Thursday, probably one of those two days.

00:59And from there, we can start beating up and start making new conclusions.

01:02Right. Okay, before you can make your full assessment.

01:08Okay. All right. So now, Jamba's admitted their fault. But do you think the apology and the

01:14decision to actually order a receipt is enough?

01:18I think it's enough. Only to the fact that Nigeria, I mean, you rarely ever see institutions

01:25that will ever come out and tell you that they are wrong. Yeah, at least you saw what we went

01:29through with EINEC and all those issues, right? But we really were able to come up and own up

01:35that they are wrong and this is exactly what went wrong, right? So meaning that they already set

01:39like the path to success. So for that, I mean, considering Nigeria in this context, I definitely

01:48commend them. But in the real sense, I definitely would not commend them to do their job.

01:53If that makes sense.

01:54Okay. Yeah, it does. From a tech and a data management perspective, what could have gone wrong?

02:00And how can such systemic failures be prevented in future exams?

02:06So clearly, this was the human error. And this was clearly caused by the vendors.

02:14So now, so this is where it became a little bit suspicious. We have two clusters, the CAD

02:20cluster and the LAC cluster. So the LAC cluster has other subclusters, like the Lagos zone,

02:26the Owera zone, which has all the Southeast states, right? And some other states, like

02:31even the FCT, Corky, right? Now, it affected the LAC cluster. The point is, why did it affect

02:38these justice states? So that is why I need defenders to come and defend this publicly, right?

02:45Because we need to know exactly where the problem is. So that is one clear thing that I also wanted

02:52to think about. Right? So now, from what they explained, there are patches of data that they

02:58are meant to push. From what we saw, they didn't push the patch of data, which basically caused

03:02the issue, right? And for some reasons, this issue wasn't fixed until we started intensifying

03:09pressure through the government and everything changed.

03:12Okay. Let's quickly look at the rewriting of the exam. Yeah. I mean, many students and parents,

03:18they are actually concerned about the psychological toll of rewriting the exam. I mean, what support

03:26system should actually be put in place immediately? Looking at the timeframe. I mean, as we speak,

03:35WIAC is ongoing. So some student might have to, you know, juggle between having to write WIAC

03:41and also going for jam. So having to put that together and then doing it at the same time,

03:48does that not have a psychological toll on the children or the student? And what can they do

03:54to actually, um, savage this?

03:58Honestly, what I recommended was for the remark, right? Which, of course, it didn't, it didn't, um,

04:04to succeed. However, however, however, majorists of the students have reached out towards this

04:10crisis. We are requesting for a, a receipt that they can, they are ready to write this

04:15exam. If jam doesn't feel that they did well, you get my point. So, but the only problem here

04:22is that the 48 hours time, um, time noted was just too short. So I think that if they had

04:30been given like two weeks, they wouldn't have created such amount of tension. So the majority

04:36of the students are very comfortable to write in the exam.

04:40Right. Okay. Now, is this problem a sign of a bigger issues with how we run exams in Nigeria?

04:51I wouldn't say it's a sign of a bigger issue. I think it's us actually to set a tone for a more,

04:56more prosperity is because right now we have seen the worst, right? And we are about to now correct

05:02it to avoid future problems. Well, that's how I would say it.

05:06Okay. So, I mean, I'm sure, I know that, uh, we've had issues of, uh, results being refilled in the

05:13time past and then maybe, you know, mass failure and what have you, but I want to ask, jam has a whole

05:21year to prepare for the student to actually sit for this exam. What do you think they would have,

05:28they should have done better rather? Jam doesn't just only have a full year. Jam has been doing

05:34this since 2013. So some of the reasons they gave makes absolute no sense for someone that

05:40have been doing something for the past 10 years. Right. Yeah. So, however, what would have been

05:46done, right, is he, whenever you are making an update in a live, you don't make an update in a live

05:51system. However, for example, you are going to write on a particular day, which is a calendar of

05:57a year, your update should come at least two months before. So you shouldn't be making updates three days,

06:03four days before the exam. It makes no sense. So this is why these kind of issues can come up.

06:09Okay. I also saw the parts where some parents or guardians, they are complaining about the time.

06:15And take, for instance, I've seen some snapshots of 6.30. I mean, going to maybe look for your

06:22center as early as 6 to 6.30. What do you have to say about that?

06:26I've already, I've already mentioned that, Jam, because from what they responded is that the

06:32actual time is by 8 o'clock. However, because I'm African, they normally communicate 6.30. I said,

06:38no, that decision is very, very wrong. That you should be able to communicate 8 o'clock and also

06:47put a disclaimer. If you come anything later than 8 o'clock, you won't be allowed to write the exam.

06:52If any student that misses the exam, it's a student's fault. No jam's fault. So you shouldn't

06:57create this kind of national attention. It makes no sense because another thing is, you know, we have

07:02African time and this is where African time starts. If somebody comes by 6.30, realizing that we are

07:07going to start the exam actually by 8 o'clock. Next time, if you call them up by 6.30, they will come

07:13by 9 o'clock. And this is the understanding of how their behavior changes.

07:18Okay. So what's now the long-term reforms you would recommend to restore public trust in Jam

07:25and Nigeria's examination system in total?

07:28Students should be able to see their results immediately.

07:32Uh-huh. Okay.

07:33Students should be able to see the questions and the answers, what they answered. They should

07:40be able to also see it after the exam. Very important. Right?

07:45Yeah.

07:47Yes. So it is very important for the students. Now, the entire process of Jam, both registration

07:53that people have to struggle, wait for midnight to see if network is going, all these things

07:59have to be revamped. So these are the things that we need to change. So the entire process

08:06needs to now be smooth. And then I don't know the engagement with the CVT centers, but some

08:11of the issues that student complained, computer went off, blah, blah, blah. They need to be

08:15able to solve these things. This is 2025. And aside from this, even when students finish

08:21and everything, schools should be able to get a report from Jam so that they can help them

08:26to be able to know area that requires improvement.

08:29Hmm.

08:30So these are the things that we need to do so that we can start making use of this data

08:35for improvement.

08:36Fair enough. Fair enough. Your final thoughts about this year's UTM is?

08:42It actually was designed to be the best, but unfortunately it turned out to be the worst,

08:47which is a big disaster, right? And I hope that with these improvements and changes, it

08:53definitely is going to set a new tone for prosperity with Jam and all the examples.

08:57Thank you. Thank you for your thought and perspective to this year's UTM is glitch. And we hope Jam

09:05is actually going to do better. It's actually, the issue goes beyond just a glitch. So it's

09:11about fixing the system and we are actually on the lookout for Jam.

09:16Yes. All right. Thank you so much, Mr. Alex Onya, CEO Educare. Thank you for your time

09:23and do have a great, a great day. Thank you.

09:26Thank you, Mr. Alex Onya for your insights. The issue goes beyond just a glitch. It's about

09:31fixing the system and we are looking forward to how Jam is going to handle this. I am Temita

09:38Olumofe. Keep watching Guardian TV.

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