Only 378,693 of the 1,761,338 candidates who took the 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations, according to information provided by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), achieved a score of 200 or above.
At the Board's 2022 policy meeting in Abuja on Thursday, July 21, 2022, JAMB Registrar Professor Ishaq Oloyede said this.
The numbers: Although fewer than 400,000 applicants received scores of 200 or higher, 520,596 applicants received scores of 190 or higher.
Oloyede provided more data for the 2022 UTME, stating that 1,192,057 applicants scored 160 or higher, 934,103 candidates scored 170 or above, and 704,991 candidates scored 180 or above.
He continued by saying that the Board permitted candidates who were awaiting results to take the UTME in 2022.
“JAMB allowed awaiting results candidates to register and sit for the 2022 UTME. These candidates can’t be considered for admission on awaiting result status. They must present their O’level results on the board’s portal before the commencement of admissions”, he said.
Why it's important: According to the numbers released by Prof. Oloyede, only 21.5 percent of the candidates received a score of 200 or higher.
Given that the cut-off mark for university entrance, particularly in the country's Federal Universities, is set at 200, this suggests a widespread exam failure.
In 2021, COVID-19 was blamed for the candidates' dismal performance in the UTME.
Prof. Oloyede claims that the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on how smoothly the academic schedule operated.
Out of the more than a million applicants that took the exam in 2021, only 168, 613 achieved a score over 200.
Although the 2022 performance statistics show an increase over the 2021 outcome, they nonetheless show that the majority of candidates did not perform well in the exam.
