The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has cleared 85 underage candidates for exceptional admission into tertiary institutions after they successfully passed a rigorous multi-stage screening process designed to identify outstanding applicants.
In a statement issued on Monday by its Head of Media, Dr Fabian Benjamin, JAMB said the 85 candidates, all younger than 16 years as of September 2025, were found qualified after a rigorous, multi-stage evaluation process.
“After meticulous evaluation, 85 candidates who are adjudged to be qualified have been duly notified to proceed to their respective institutions to complete the admission process and print their individual JAMB admission letters.
“This policy of exceptional admission is consistent with global best practices, where such cases are treated as rare exceptions rather than the norm,” the statement read.
JAMB explained that out of 2,031,133 applicants in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), 41,027 candidates sought to be considered under the special category.
“Under this special category, 599 scored the 80 percent threshold in the UTME.
“These 599 were subjected to further scrutiny of school certificate and PUTME screening, which led to the emergence of 182 candidates (178+4).
“After due verification, interviews, and screening, 85 candidates were found to have met the criteria and have consequently been cleared for admission,” the Board added.
JAMB also advised any of the final candidates who missed the final interview to submit a formal request through its support system.
“Any of the 182 finalist-candidates who, with a valid reason, missed the finalA interview, is advised to submit a formal request through the JAMB Support Ticketing System- https://support.jamb.gov.ng under the newly created category titled ‘2025 Underage Complaint.’
“Such complaints will be reviewed individually, and decisions will be made strictly on their own merits. This window is exclusively for only the 182 finalists who might, for one reason or the other missed the final interview.”
The statement added that “candidates who score 320 and above in UTME but failed to upload O-Level results and were subsequently disqualified from proceeding are now given a chance to upload within two (2) days (I.e. not later than Wednesday, 29th October 2025) and notify the Board of such through the ticketing platform.”
The Board reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining transparency, inclusiveness, and academic integrity across all tiers of tertiary education in Nigeria.
Recall that JAMB, in a statement on October 16, stated that only candidates who will be 16 years old by August 2025 would be admitted to tertiary institutions.
The directive was a follow-up to the new policy that the Ministry of Education introduced, which states the adoption of 18 years as the minimum age for admission into tertiary institutions.
The directive caused outrage.
A former Nigerian Bar Association chairman, Warri branch, John Aikpokpo-Martins, dragged the admission board to court, which restrained the board from implementing the policy.
After JAMB set up screening for underage students to be considered for exceptional admission into tertiary institutions