WAEC Releases Reviewed 2025 WASSCE Results After Grading Error

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Nigeria, has released reviewed results for the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for school candidates, following the discovery of grading errors that significantly distorted candidates’ performance statistics.

At a press briefing on Friday in Lagos, WAEC Nigeria’s Head, Dr. Amos Dangut, admitted to a serious error in marking serialised papers, which misrepresented the results. “With deep sorrow and regret, I apologise on behalf of the Registrar, Management, and Staff of WAEC Nigeria for the discrepancies in grading serialised papers. This is very difficult for us to say, but it is deeply embarrassing,” Dangut said.

The error stemmed from a new security measure, paper serialisation, already in use by another national examination body. Post-examination reviews revealed that the English Language Objective Test (Paper 3) was marked using incorrect keys due to a wrongly assigned serialised code file. Other serialised subjects included Mathematics, Biology, and Economics. Dangut clarified that candidates who took the computer-based mode were not affected.

Following corrections, 1,794,821 candidates, representing 91.14 per cent, obtained credit and above in at least five subjects, with or without English and Mathematics. A total of 1,239,884 candidates, or 62.96 per cent, secured five credits including English and Mathematics, a sharp improvement from the earlier reported 38.32 per cent. Of this number, 53.05 per cent were female candidates, while 46.95 per cent were male. Despite the improvement, the performance still reflects a 9.16 per cent drop from the 72.12 per cent recorded in 2024.

Overall, 1,969,313 candidates sat the examination, including those from schools in Benin Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, and Equatorial Guinea following the Nigerian curriculum. WAEC also catered to 12,178 special needs candidates, including the visually impaired, hearing impaired, physically challenged, and spastic or mentally challenged, whose results have all been released.

WAEC confirmed that 1,763,470 candidates, representing 89.55 per cent, have had their results fully processed, while 205,916, or 10.45 per cent, still have one or more subjects pending due to technical issues. In addition, results of 191,053 candidates, representing 9.7 per cent, have been withheld over allegations of examination malpractice, lower than the 11.92 per cent recorded in 2024. Investigations are ongoing, and affected candidates can seek redress via waecinternational.org/complaints.

Candidates have been advised to access their results through the official portal, www.waecdirect.org, and apply for their digital certificates, which will be available within 48 hours after verification. Hard copy certificates will be ready within 90 days. However, candidates sponsored by indebted state governments will not be able to access their results until outstanding payments are made.

Dangut offered an unreserved apology to all stakeholders, acknowledging the emotional ordeal faced by candidates, parents, teachers, school administrators, ministries of education, and the media. He assured that WAEC is taking all necessary measures to prevent such an incident from recurring and expressed gratitude to the Federal Government, the Minister of Education, and state education bodies for their support during the review process.