The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is planning to introduce life skills and critical thinking into the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The Registrar, Prof. Segun Aina, disclosed this on Wednesday during an appearance on NTA’s Good Morning Nigeria and later at the Board’s Abuja zonal office during its 2026 Customer Week.
According to Aina, the new assessment is aimed at evaluating candidates beyond academic knowledge to include reasoning ability, decision making and how they apply knowledge to practical situations.
He said a committee headed by psychometrician Prof. Boniface Nworgu was inaugurated in September to work out the framework. The committee will determine whether the skills will be tested as separate components or integrated into existing subjects, and how they can be measured reliably.
Aina stressed that the proposal is not to replace existing academic requirements but to better assess candidates’ suitability for their chosen courses. He noted that professions like medicine require critical thinking beyond technical knowledge.
The Registrar added that no final decision has been taken and the Board will rely on the committee’s evidence based recommendations before implementation.
He also clarified that UTME scores are not absolute measures of intelligence but ranking tools. “It is not how good you are that your JAMB score speaks to. It is more about how you rank against others,” he said, explaining that if all candidates score above 300, 299 would appear low.
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