By Ngozi Nwankwo
As tertiary institutions are commencing 2025/2026 academic admission process, fears and tension have heightened especially candidates with awaiting O’ level results, calling on National Examination Council of Nigeria,NECO, to quickly release their Senior School Certificate Examination, SSCE,
results.
With many candidates feared being denied of admission opportunity if the Council delay the release of results within the stipulated time for admission, parents, guardians and other concerned citizens have described the delay as another disaster in academic pursuit in Nigerian.
Lamenting about the delay in releasing NECO results, a mother of one of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination,UTME candidates, Mrs Mary Akpan said, ” Aside under 16 age restriction, candidates who did not make five credits including English and mathematics subjects at a sitting in their 0’level may face another disaster. If they did not upload their results on Joint Admissions Matriculation Board,JAMB, Central Admissions Processing System,CAPS, portal, institutions may deny them the admission whether they scored above cut-off marks or not, and this means waiting for another one year for rewriting UTME. Please, they should not be further delay, our children should be in school not at home.”
Also, a father of four, and a banker, Mr. Paul Ajike, said, “There should be a harmonized processes between examination bodies and tertiary institutions for smooth admission processes, as this will allow prospects students especially those with awaiting results to apply and make adequate adjustments such as meeting up with uploading of their final results. Imagine, some institutions don’t accept awaiting 0′ level results and others that accept may reject candidates who did meet up with result upload before screening or Post- UTME.”
Meanwhile , the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board,JAMB, had directed all candidates who uploaded their O’level results before the release of the final 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination,WAEC SSCE, results to revisit accredited centres and re-upload their results.
The Board gave the directive through its weekly news bulletin on Monday, August 25, 2025.
The examination body said all previously uploaded results have been cleared from its system to prevent discrepancies and to ensure that only official WAEC final results were used for admission processing.
According to the Board, “Some candidates who sat for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, with awaiting results had prematurely uploaded incomplete WAEC records before the final release.
“To address the issue, JAMB has mandated a fresh upload for every candidate, irrespective of whether the new results differ from those uploaded earlier.
Though the JAMB’s directive did not state deadline for the upload of all 0’level results but it would be recalled that during a policy meeting held on July 8,2025, JAMB and the Heads of tertiary institutions held discussions on minimum cut-off marks for both universities, polytechnics and colleges of education; minimum entry age requirement ; admission deadline for all the tertiary institutions was also agreed and among many others. They pegged cut-off marks for universities at 150, polytechnic and colleges of education 100, colleges of nursing 140, while age limit was pegged at 16 years.
For admission dates, the stakeholders agreed that for the 2025/2026 admission exercise in Nigeria, all tertiary institutions are to complete their admissions by December 31, 2025, with public universities aiming for October 31, 2025, and private universities for November 30, 2025. All preliminary activities, including post-UTME screening, should be finished well before these deadlines to ensure the academic calendar is stabilized.
“Public Universities must complete admissions by October 31, 2025.
Private Universities: Must finalize admissions by November 30, 2025.
All Other Tertiary Institutions: Must conclude admissions by December 31, 2025,” they unanimously agreed.
In the meeting chaired by the Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, institutions were being encouraged to conduct their admissions and post-UTME screenings in good time to meet these deadlines to ensure stable academic calendar and fair access to admission opportunities across the different levels of tertiary education.
Expressing his fear, one of the candidates who wants to study at University of Nsukka as first and second choices, Ogochukwu Michael appealed to NECO to release their results for admission screening, adding that those who made good grades in the 2025 UTME should not be rejected by their schools of their choices due to awaiting results.
“Though JAMB has not announced a specific deadline for uploading awaiting results for the 2025 admission cycle, but the deadline for completing admissions is October 31, 2025, for public universities and November 30, 2025, for private universities, which implies a deadline for result uploads will occur before these dates. Candidates must upload their O’level results to the JAMB CAPS portal to be considered for admission, NECO must not fail candidates of awaiting results and there must be a well structured system that favours those who are waiting for their results,” he said .
Speaking also, another candidate, Sandra Ibezim, said the further delay in NECO results will ruin her dream of gaining admission into Abuja University as the school strictly admits on merit and does not accept awaiting results.
” I score above five credits but I didn’t make my mathematics. I score pass in mathematics and UniAbuja does not accept pass in English or Maths no matter your JAMB score. This is the main reason I need my NECO result so I can combine the two if I made credit in NECO Mathematics. The further delay may ruin my chances of getting Abuja University as my choice because I don’t want go far from my parents.
“Again, many institutions have started their post UTME screening if this delay more, other schools might conclude admission process before the result will be out and this means waiting for another one year to resit for JAMB,” she lamented.
Our correspondent gathered that
students sat for the 2025 NECO Senior School Certificate Examination,SSCE, internally from June 16, 2025, to July 25, 2025. The examination period covered both practical and written papers across various subjects for registered candidates.
While contacted the examination body( NECO), to ascertain the reason for the delay in releasing the results, the press officer of the Council, Mr. Azeez Sani could not divulge the cause of the delay, but he assured that the results will be released this week.
