The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced a special screening exercise for over 500 outstanding candidates under the age of 16 who are seeking admission into tertiary institutions for the 2025/2026 academic session.
The exercise will run from September 22 to 26, 2025, and will be supervised by a special technical committee set up by the board.
According to JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, three centres have been designated for the process: Lagos (397 candidates), Owerri (136 candidates), and Abuja (66 candidates).
Oloyede revealed that out of the 41,027 underage candidates who sat for the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), more than 40,000 did not meet the initial qualification requirements.
“The screening aims to ensure that only the most exceptional and adequately prepared underage candidates are considered for admission. People have been doing it in other parts of the world. We are not reinventing the wheel,” he said.
The assessment, as outlined by subcommittee chair Prof. Taoheed Adedoja, will include subject-specific tests and brief oral interviews. JAMB will also request verified results from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) for shortlisted candidates before interviews.
The meeting that finalized these arrangements was attended by heads of tertiary institutions, representatives of government agencies, civil society groups, members of the Nigerian Academy of Education, and the principal of the Federal Government Gifted Academy, Suleja.
Of the 1.955 million candidates who wrote the 2025 UTME, 599 scored above 300 but fell below the Federal Ministry of Education’s minimum admission age of 16 — a policy aimed at ensuring candidates are mentally and psychologically ready for higher education, discouraging age falsification, and protecting young learners from undue parental pressure.
Only those meeting strict benchmarks — at least 320 in UTME (80%), 80% in post-UTME, and 80% (24/30 points) in a single WAEC or NECO sitting — will be considered.
Meanwhile, four universities — the Air Force Institute of Technology, Kaduna; Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi; University of Jos; and Osun State University — have already declared that they will not admit underage candidates under any circumstances.
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