The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has raised concerns over the increasing number of underage candidates registering for the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). Speaking in Lagos, he emphasized that the board will impose penalties on any applicant falsely claiming to meet the age requirement.
“As of today, we have registered 780,202 candidates. This is the second week, the 10th day of registration. Surprisingly, 11,512 of them are underage,” Oloyede stated.
He expressed frustration over the trend, describing it as a waste of JAMB’s resources. He further explained that while the board acknowledges that some candidates may genuinely be academically gifted, the global standard for such cases remains rare.
“You know you have world standards. Ordinarily, it’s about one in a million. So when people give examples, how many of them do you have in the whole of America, in the whole of Canada that you are referring to? It’s one in a million,” he said.
Oloyede attributed the rise in underage registrations to parental pressure and unethical practices, including falsified school certificates. He pointed out that many of these students struggle academically, making it clear that rushing them into higher education is counterproductive.
“Those we call candidates are those who are 16 and above; these are not candidates; we are not regarding them as candidates; they need to prove that they are candidates. But if we now find out that you cannot prove your age, we will impose some penalties on them, and it would have been better for them to have waited for their time because they are going to waste our money,” he warned.
With JAMB closely monitoring registrations, Oloyede urged parents and guardians to allow their children to follow the proper academic timeline instead of forcing them into premature examinations.
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