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 discrepancies that significantly affected candidates’ performance statistics.
Dr Amos Dangut, Head of WAEC Nigeria, admitted to a severe error in the marking of serialised papers that resulted in a misrepresentation of applicants’ performance during a press briefing on Friday at the council’s national office in Yaba, Lagos.
“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, the WAEC had implemented a new 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 serialised subjects 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,” Dangut explained.
With the error repaired, 1,794,821 applicants (91.14 per cent) received credit or above in at least five subjects (with or without English and Mathematics).
Notably, 1,239,884 candidates, or 62.96 per cent, earned five credits, including English and mathematics, a huge increase from the previously stated 38.32%.
Of this total, 657,819 (53.05%) were female candidates, while 582,065 (46.95%) were male.
However, this represents a 9.16% reduction from the 72.12 per cent performance achieved in 2024.
WAEC said that 1,969,313 applicants took the exams, including those from schools in the Republic of Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, and Equatorial Guinea that follow the Nigerian curriculum.
The council also served 12,178 special needs applicants, including the visually impaired (112), hearing impaired (615), physically challenged (37), and spastic/mentally disabled (52). The results for these candidates have also been processed and released.
“All these candidates were adequately provided for in the administration of the examination,” said Dangut.
While 1,763,470 applicants (89.55%) had their results fully processed, 205,916 (10.45%) still had one or more topics outstanding owing to technical concerns.
WAEC reminded everyone that efforts are being made to complete processing and distribute outstanding results as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, the results of 191,053 candidates (9.7%) have been withheld due to claims of examination misconduct.
This is lower than the 11.92% observed in 2024.
Investigations are underway, and impacted applicants can seek redress at 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.
WAEC advised candidates to obtain their results on the official portal www.waecdirect.org and apply for digital certificates, which will be accessible within 48 hours of result verification. Hard copy certificates will be available within 90 days.
Dangut warned everyone that candidates supported by indebted state governments would not be able to view their results until the council received payment.
“We appeal to the concerned authorities to do the needful to enable affected schools and candidates to access their results,” according to him.
Dangut issued an unreserved apology to stakeholders, saying, “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 commended the Federal Government, the Minister of Education, and state education agencies for their assistance with the evaluation and settlement process.
