The West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Nigeria, has released revised results for the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for school candidates, following the discovery of grading errors that significantly skewed candidates’ performance data.
At a press conference held Friday at WAEC’s national office in Yaba, Lagos, the Head of WAEC Nigeria, Dr. Amos Dangut, admitted a serious misstep in the marking of serialised examination papers, which led to inaccurate results.
“With deep sorrow and regret, I, on behalf of the Registrar to Council, Management, and Staff of WAEC Nigeria, apologise for the discrepancies discovered in the grading of serialised papers. This is very difficult for us to say, but we have to admit that it is very embarrassing,” said Dangut.
According to him, the grading issues were linked to the council’s newly introduced paper serialisation system borrowed from another national examination body as a security measure.
However, a post-examination review revealed that the English Language Objective Test (Paper 3) had been marked using incorrect answer keys, resulting from a wrongly assigned serialisation code.
The error affected English, Mathematics, Biology, and Economics papers. Fortunately, candidates who wrote the exam using computer-based testing (CBT) were not affected.
Following the correction, 1,794,821 candidates (91.14%) obtained credit and above in at least five subjects (with or without English and Mathematics).
Out of these, 1,239,884 candidates (62.96%) earned five credits, including English and Mathematics an improvement from the previously announced 38.32%.
Of this number, 53.05% were female (657,819) and 46.95% male (582,065).
Despite the correction, this year’s result reflects a 9.16% drop compared to the 72.12% performance rate in 2024.
A total of 1,969,313 candidates sat the exam, including students from Nigerian curriculum schools in Benin Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, and Equatorial Guinea.
WAEC also processed results for 12,178 special needs candidates, including the visually impaired (112), hearing impaired (615), physically challenged (37), and mentally challenged (52).While 1,763,470 candidates (89.55%) have received their full results, 205,916 (10.45%) are still awaiting one or more subjects due to technical issues.
WAEC assured that these pending results will be released soon.
Meanwhile, 191,053 candidates (9.7%) have their results withheld due to allegations of examination malpractice lower than the 11.92% recorded in 2024.
Investigations are ongoing, and candidates are encouraged to file complaints through waecinternational.org/complaints.Dr.
Dangut reiterated WAEC’s commitment to fairness and integrity, stating “WAEC will continue to enforce sanctions on all examination malpractice cases. All hands must be on deck to sanitize the system.”
Candidates can check their results at www.waecdirect.org and apply for digital certificates, which will be available within 48 hours of result verification.
Hard copies will be ready within 90 days.
However, candidates sponsored by indebted state governments will not have access to their results until the council receives payment.
Dangut appealed to concerned authorities to settle outstanding debts promptly.
Finally, Dangut offered an unreserved apology to all stakeholders, including students, parents, teachers, school administrators, and the media.
“We acknowledge the emotional ordeal many have faced. This is a trying moment for WAEC, and we are working tirelessly to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
He also expressed gratitude to the Federal Government, the Minister of Education, and state education bodies for their support during the review and resolution process.
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