The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has clarified that students already enrolled in universities are not eligible to sit for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
Spokesman for JAMB, Fabian Benjamin, made this statement on Tuesday in Abuja.
Benjamin’s comments were in response to what he called a misleading and unfortunate distortion of part of the Board’s directives to candidates registering for the 2026 UTME/Direct Entry (DE), as highlighted in the 2026 UTME/DE advertisement.
According to him, the deliberate misrepresentation is being propagated by some unscrupulous self-styled education advocates for parochial interests.
The Board’s mouthpiece added that the development is hardly surprising, stressing that such individuals routinely surface at the commencement of every registration cycle.
He maintained that many of them do not take the time to read or properly understand the guidelines, yet hastily rush to the public space with false narratives aimed solely at attracting traffic to their social media platforms.
“For the avoidance of doubt and for record purposes, and in line with its statutory mandate to prevent multiple matriculations, the Board directed that all candidates registering for the 2026 UTME/DE must disclose their matriculation status, where applicable.
“It is not an offence for a candidate to register for the UTME/DE while still enrolled in an institution. However, failure to disclose such status constitutes an offence. Disclosure simply means that once a candidate secures admission through the latest registration, the former admission automatically ceases to subsist. The law is explicit that no candidate is permitted to hold two admissions concurrently.
“Furthermore, recent findings indicate that many matriculated students are engaged as professional examination takers. Mandatory disclosure therefore expedites appropriate action whenever such candidates are apprehended.
“Although the Board’s system has the capacity to detect prior matriculation, any candidate discovered to have failed to disclose such status stands the risk of forfeiting both opportunities,” he said.
JAMB urged the public to be wary of so-called ‘education advocates’ who, it said, often mislead candidates and parents for their own selfish interests.
