The West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Nigeria, has released corrected results of the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for school candidates, following the discovery of a grading error that significantly distorted students’ performance outcomes.
Speaking at a press conference held on Friday at the council’s national office in Yaba, Lagos, Head of WAEC Nigeria, Dr. Amos Dangut, offered a public apology over the grading discrepancies.
“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 stated.
He explained that the issue arose from the implementation of a new security feature known as paper serialisation, which had been previously adopted by another examination body.
Unfortunately, a technical fault occurred during the scoring of the English Language Objective Test (Paper 3), due to the use of an incorrect serialised code file.
“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 clarified.
In addition to English, other affected subjects included Mathematics, Biology, and Economics. Following the correction of the error, updated statistics now show that 1,794,821 candidates, representing 91.14%, obtained credit and above in at least five subjects (with or without English and Mathematics).
Of greater significance, 1,239,884 candidates, or 62.96%, obtained credits in five subjects including English and Mathematics.
This marks a sharp increase from the initially reported 38.32%.
Breaking down the figures, 657,819 of these candidates (53.05%) were female, while 582,065 (46.95%) were male.
However, despite the correction, this still represents a 9.16% decline compared to the 72.12% success rate recorded in 2024.
WAEC disclosed that a total of 1,969,313 candidates participated in the 2025 WASSCE, including students from schools in Benin Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, and Equatorial Guinea, all operating the Nigerian curriculum.
Special needs candidates were also accommodated, with 12,178 students requiring various levels of support.
This group included 112 visually impaired candidates, 615 with hearing impairment, 37 physically challenged, and 52 with spastic or mental challenges.
WAEC confirmed their results have also been processed and released.
“All these candidates were adequately provided for in the administration of the examination,” Dangut added.
As of now, 1,763,470 results, representing 89.55% have been fully processed and released.
However, 205,916 results (10.45%) are still being processed due to technical issues, which the council assured are being resolved.
In a related development, WAEC reported that 191,053 candidates, about 9.7% have their results withheld due to allegations of examination malpractice.
This figure is a slight improvement from the 11.92% reported in 2024.
“WAEC will continue to sanction all cases of examination malpractice. All hands must be on deck to sanitise the system,” Dangut stated, while encouraging affected candidates to file complaints at waecinternational.org/complaints.
Candidates can now check their results at www.waecdirect.org and are advised to apply for their digital certificates, which will be available within 48 hours of result verification.
Physical certificates will be ready within 90 days.
However, Dangut reminded the public that students sponsored by state governments owing WAEC will not be able to access their results until those debts are cleared.
“We appeal to the concerned authorities to do the needful to enable affected schools and candidates to access their results,” he urged.
Concluding the briefing, Dangut extended a heartfelt apology to all stakeholders affected by the mishap.
“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.
He also expressed gratitude to the Federal Government, the Minister of Education, and all state education bodies for their support throughout the review and correction process.
