The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, will, between September 22 and 26, screen more than 500 exceptional candidates below the age of 16 seeking admission into tertiary institutions for the 2025/2026 academic session.
According to resolutions from a virtual meeting on Wednesday, the exercise will be handled by a special technical committee set up by JAMB. Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, announced that three venues have been approved, Lagos, Abuja, and Owerri, with Lagos hosting 397 candidates, Owerri 136, and Abuja 66.
Out of 41,027 underage candidates who sat for the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, over 40,000 did not pass the first stage. “People have been doing it in other parts of the world. We are not reinventing the wheel,” Oloyede said.
The committee, led by Prof. Taoheed Adedoja, said candidates will undergo subject-specific tests and an oral interview. WAEC result verification will be requested for some shortlisted candidates.
Only those who scored at least 320 in UTME, 80 per cent, and 80 per cent in post-UTME, as well as 80 per cent in WAEC/NECO in a single sitting will be considered.
The initiative, in line with the Ministry of Education’s 16-year minimum admission age policy, seeks to balance academic brilliance with cognitive maturity and curb age falsification.
Of the 1.955 million who sat for UTME this year, 599 scored above 300 but were underage. Four universities, Air Force Institute of Technology, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, University of Jos, and Osun State University, have declared they will not admit underage candidates.
