By now, we’ve all seen the video—Professor Ishaq Oloyede, the JAMB Registrar, shedding tears like a Nollywood lead actor during an emotional funeral scene.
But this wasn’t a movie. It was real life. And those tears weren’t for a lost loved one—they were for a botched UTME, a shattered reputation, and the roasting that was about to commence on Nigerian Twitter.
But beyond the drama, the outrage, and the calls to #ScrapJAMB, one question lingers like NEPA in a thunderstorm: What’s the real solution Nigerians are not seeing?
But guess what? It’s Not Just About JAMB
You see, JAMB has become the national symbol of educational frustration.
It’s the “one exam to rule them all,” and somehow, it fails spectacularly at it year after year.
But if we’re being honest, the problem is much deeper than one glitchy board or one emotional registrar.
Nigeria’s entire education system is a glitch.
Broken From The Ground Up
Think about it. We ask 17-year-olds to define their future based on an exam that’s more unpredictable than Lagos traffic.
And when things go wrong, we act surprised—as if a system built on outdated curricula, overstressed teachers, malfunctioning CBT centers, and zero accountability is supposed to magically produce genius-level scores.
What’s next? Asking WAEC to print scratch cards on banana leaves?
The Real Fix No One’s Talking About
Here’s a wild idea: maybe, just maybe, the solution isn’t to scrap JAMB entirely—but to rethink why we’re using it in the first place.
Why is JAMB the gatekeeper of university admissions in a country of over 200 million people?
Why are universities not allowed to take more control over their own admissions process?
And why are we still designing high-stakes exams to filter out “the best”, when the system itself doesn’t give everyone an equal fighting chance?
Instead of using JAMB as a national sieve to catch “worthy” students, why not:
Decentralise Admissions: Let universities set their own fair and transparent criteria.
Update the Curriculum: It’s 2025. We’re still asking kids to define osmosis while the rest of the world is teaching AI, climate tech, and robotics.
Invest in Infrastructure: If your computer-based testing center looks like an abandoned cybercafé from 2008, maybe the problem isn’t with the students.
Incorporate Continuous Assessment: What if we evaluated students over time instead of betting their future on one day and one glitchy server?
But Nigerians Love Firefighting
Rather than address systemic issues, we’d rather wait for a full-blown scandal before pretending to care.
Also Read: UTME 2025 Glitch: Should JAMB Be Scrapped?
Cue: online petitions, trending hashtags, and committee after committee that promises “reform” but delivers nothing but brown envelopes and lukewarm press statements.
Meanwhile, students are the ones suffering—mentally, emotionally, and sometimes even physically.
The joke writes itself: Nigeria prepares students for exams, but not for life.
The JAMB Glitch
The JAMB 2025 glitch should not just be a trending topic or a reason to bash one man’s tears.
It should be a wake-up call to rethink the way we assess knowledge, reward intelligence, and prepare our youth for the future.
So no, the real solution is not just to scrap JAMB. The real solution is to scrap the way we think about education in Nigeria.
And until we do that, we’ll keep crying over spilled CBT—and yes, the tears will keep streaming, whether they’re from frustrated students, overworked parents, or teary-eyed registrars with nowhere left to hide.
