"I want to study medicine and surgery": Biology teacher who scored 37 shares why he wrote JAMB again

• The Nigerian teacher who took the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in 2025 has opened up
• The teacher said he took the examination because he wanted to go back to the university to study medicine
• He said it has always been his dream to be a doctor, noting that he already has a degree in biology but still wants to be a doctor

John Felix, a biology teacher who has taught the subject for 18 years, was dissatisfied with his performance in the 2025 UTME.

Felix took the examination with so confidence, but the result shocked him. His performance was abysmal.

He posted it on Facebook, showing people that he scored 37 in biology, a subject he has a degree in. His overall score was 159, a situation which did not sit well with him.

He said in his post:

"Anybody who knows me knows that under no circumstances can I have a score as low as this. Throughout my days of seeking my first admission, there wasn't a day I scored below 200. Those were days when JAMB was tough like uncooked Kanda, talk of these years when JAMB even asked questions on concord and possessive pronouns. Leki headmaster that I am sure I failed only one question, or is it the comprehension?"

It was later discovered that there was a glitch which caused 379,000 candidates to fail the UTME in Lagos and the South East. Felix was one of them and he has taken a resit exam.

Felix says JAMB error was avoidable

Speaking to Legit.ng in an exclusive interview, Felix said the result was shameful and blamed JAMB for what happened.

His words:

"If they can have such a glitch and they could resolve it before we started shouting, that's very shameful. In fact, Alex Onyia, the CEO of Educare mentioned that it was on the 17th session that JAMB found out that there was error, that they didn't feed the system with the correct marking scheme. Then they corrected it from the 17th session and then 1 to 16 was left like that. So if that should be true, it means that somebody's head needs to roll. Because that was deliberate. If they found out that there was actually an error in the system, and the first session, 2nd and up to 16th, that is when more than half of those who should write JAMB must have taken and they failed to inform us on time."

Error should have been detected earlier

According to Felix, JAMB should have been able to detect the error on time and announce it to the general public.

Instead, he said the examination body went ahead to announce an erroneous result, which caused trauma to many people.

His words:

"Because what they should have done is to call a press conference and say okay, dear candidates, we are sorry, we have observed that something went wrong while you were writing, so we are rescheduling your exam. They should have rescheduled the exam within those days exam was going on. That would have been better and it would have saved them from this shame. But they just ignored it, waited and published an insulting result. You can imagine, like I'm crying and complaining."

He said even if he did not do well in other subjects, he was sure there was no way he would have scored only 37 in biology.

Felix said that if people did not speak up, many candidates would have taken their results that way, and then they would be blamed for not doing well, whereas it was not their fault.

He noted:

"Okay, let me not argue about chemistry, physics or English, I don't have any certificate in them. But what about the biology I teach? The biology I studied in the university where I have first degree. In fact, I'm a masters degree student in biology. I'm currently writing my thesis. So, I don't see how O'Level biology will come and I will score 37. I don't see that coming. So, if I didn't start complaining and probably others followed suit, and that man, Alex Onyia, who knows what would have happened? So, everybody would have accepted their scores that way, and then it would have been that there was an abysmal performance. Who knows if this is not what has been happening over the years? And people have been lamenting. So, I don't feel good about this kind of a thing happening in the examination body like that."

Felix says there was no problem with the computer he used

However, Felix said that when he was writing the examination, there were no problems with the computer he used. He said everything was smooth until he finished. He said the glitch may not have come from the examination centres.

He told Legit.ng:

"When I wrote my exam, there were no technical glitches, my computer ran smoothly. There was nothing like shutting down and coming up again. All through the time. I think I used around 1:35 minutes or so. Nothing happened. The system was okay."

Why Felix wrote JAMB despite having a first degree

According to Felix, his dream has always been to become a medical doctor. He said he is currently doing his masters in biology but still wants to pursue medicine.

He said:

"I have a Bsc Education in biology obtained from the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). I had to go to the NOUN after seeing medicine and surgery for several years in federal universities and I couldn't get. I was looking for a federal university because I came from a poor background. So, I needed a federal university where the fees are cheaper, so that at least, I can find a way of sorthing the school fees with my parents. But I couldn't get admission. So a friend introduced me to NOUN and I went there, obtained a degree in biology. I graduated with a good grade. Although, it's 2:2 but I got 3.49. I'm not a dullard. I have a first degree in biology. Now, why I wrote JAMB is that I want to still pursue that my dream of doing medicine and surgery. That's why I wrote. I wrote last year and I got 247. Unfortunately, too, I couldn't gain admission last year."

Felix scored 282 in the resit JAMB examination.

Man checks his children's UTME results

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that a Nigerian man shared a video of the moment he attempted to check his children's performance in the 2025 UTME.

The man's two daughters were jittery when he said he wanted to personally check their scores in the UTME.

After sending the required code to the JAMB exam checking number, the man shared the response he got.

Source: Legit.ng