The West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Nigeria has released reviewed results for the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for school candidates, after uncovering grading discrepancies that significantly affected performance statistics.
At a press briefing on Friday at WAEC’s national office in Yaba, Lagos, the Head of WAEC Nigeria, Dr. Amos Dangut, admitted to a serious error in the marking of serialised papers, which he said led to the misrepresentation of candidates’ performance.
“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,” Dangut said.
According to him, WAEC had introduced a security innovation known as paper serialisation, already in use by another national examination body. However, during post-examination reviews, it was discovered that the English Language Objective Test (Paper 3) was scored using incorrect keys due to a wrongly assigned serialised code file.
Other subjects affected by serialisation included Mathematics, Biology, and Economics.
“We investigated and discovered that a serialised code file was wrongly used in the printing of the English Language Objective paper. This resulted in them being marked with incorrect answer keys. It is important to note that candidates who wrote the exams using the computer-based mode were not affected,” he explained.
With the correction applied, 1,794,821 candidates – representing 91.14% – obtained credit and above in at least five subjects (with or without English and Mathematics). Out of these, 1,239,884 candidates or 62.96% earned five credits, including English and Mathematics, compared to the 38.32% initially reported.
Among them, 657,819 (53.05%) were female, while 582,065 (46.95%) were male. Despite the improvement, this reflects a 9.16% drop from the 72.12% performance recorded in 2024.
A total of 1,969,313 candidates sat for the examination, including students from Benin Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, and Equatorial Guinea, which run the Nigerian curriculum. WAEC also catered to 12,178 special needs candidates, comprising the visually impaired (112), hearing impaired (615), physically challenged (37), and spastic/mentally challenged (52), whose results have also been processed and released.
“All these candidates were adequately provided for in the administration of the examination,” Dangut said.
WAEC confirmed that 1,763,470 candidates (89.55%) have had their results fully processed, while 205,916 (10.45%) still have one or more subjects pending due to technical issues. The council assured that efforts are underway to release these outstanding results soon.
Meanwhile, results of 191,053 candidates (9.7%) have been withheld over alleged examination malpractice, a decline from the 11.92% recorded in 2024. Investigations are ongoing, and affected candidates may seek redress via waecinternational.org/complaints.
“WAEC will continue to sanction all cases of examination malpractice. All hands must be on deck to sanitise the system,” Dangut emphasised.
Candidates are advised to check their results at www.waecdirect.org and apply for their digital certificates, available within 48 hours of verification. Hard copy certificates will be ready within 90 days. However, students sponsored by indebted state governments will not have access to their results until payments are made.
“We appeal to the concerned authorities to do the needful to enable affected schools and candidates to access their results,” he urged.
In closing, Dangut offered an unreserved apology to all stakeholders.
“We acknowledge the emotional ordeal that candidates, parents, teachers, school administrators, Ministries of Education, and the media must have endured. This is a trying time for us at WAEC. We are doing everything we can to ensure this dismal situation does not recur,” he said.
WAEC also expressed gratitude to the Federal Government, the Minister of Education, and state education bodies for their support during the review process.
