The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) registrar, Professor Emeritus Isiaq Oloyede, has disclosed that no fewer than 4,997 underage candidates have so far registered for the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) registration.
This is as he disclosed that the board had, by Monday afternoon, registered 420,674 candidates for its May 2025/2026 exams, targeting two million for the exercise.
Speaking with journalists in Ilorin on Monday, after monitoring some Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres, the registrar lambasted the parents aiding their underaged wards to register for the board’s examination, describing them as selfish.
He stated that as of Monday afternoon, the number of underaged registrants (candidates below 16 years) stood at 4,997.
He condemned the “selfish parents” who crave to make their children’s educational pursuits their (parents’) victory medal.
He fumed: “You can see how we’re deceiving ourselves in this country. Before now, the maximum figure of underage candidates used to be about 300. But in a situation where we’ve just started in five days, and we have a total number of 4,996 underaged registrants, by the end of today, they will be more than 5,000.
“Many of these parents have misdirected their children. They want to use their children’s early education to decorate their CVs.”
Fielding questions on the reasons for allowing underaged candidates in the exams, the registrar said that all underaged candidates are made to sign an indemnity form or undertake to meet up with academic ability or be sanctioned if they fail to meet up with claimed exceptional intelligence.
Meanwhile, JAMB said it has registered a total of 420,674 candidates for the 2025/2026 JAMB exams so far, as of Monday afternoon.
According to him, 32,435 candidates registered for the exams yesterday (Monday) afternoon alone.
Oloyede said that the exam body has a target of two million candidates for the exams.
He also disclosed that 124,632 candidates have entered for the mock UTME exams, putting the number of trial-testing candidates at 331 so far.
JAMB recalled that six listed individuals from various institutions in the country were blacklisted for life from participating in its examinations.
“They were caught in exam malpractices; we have their particulars,” he said, adding that a senior university official is being prosecuted for exam-related crimes while others are under investigation.
He said that, earlier in the registration exercise, 10 institutions were caught registering candidates at night.
After his visits to CBT centres to monitor the registration for the 2025/2026 UTME registration, Oloyede assured that the exercise was going excellently well in all centres.
“Going around, I’m very proud of those on the field, CBT centres, my staff, and everyone involved. I think it’s better by far. People know we’ll not take anything less than standard, and they’ve done very well. We also thank security agencies. They’ve assisted us so well,” he said.
The Guardian
