The West African Examinations Council, WAEC, on Friday agreed that there were errors in the grading of some of the papers candidate wrote in this year’s Senior Secondary School Examination, SSCE, saying the failure rate was not as pronounced as earlier announced.
The Council therefore said it had reviewed the results and that more candidates now passed five or more subjects including English Language and Mathematics.
The new figure now is 1,239,884 candidates having credit passes in five subjects or more including English Language and Mathematics.
The new figure represents 62.9 % of the 1,969,313 candidates who sat for the examination.
Initially, the body said only 754,545 or 38.32% of the number of candidates had credit passes in five or more subjects including English and Mathematics.
Briefing the press in Lagos on Friday evening, the Head of National Office of WAEC, Dr Amos Dangut, admitted some lapses on the part of the Council, especially regarding the serialized questions in objective papers of some subjects.
“Gentlemen of the media, with deep sense of sorrow and regret, I, on behalf of the Registrar to Council, Management and Staff of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Nigeria, welcome you to this press briefing to announce the reviewed results of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for School Candidates, 2025 in Nigeria.
“You will recall that on Monday, August 4, 2025, the Council, in Nigeria, announced the release of results of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for School Candidates, 2025. In the course of the briefing, we told you that 1,969,313 candidates sat the examination and that 976,787 were males while 992,526) were females, representing 49.60% and 50.40%, respectively.
“From the analysis of statistics of candidates’ performance in the examination, we told you that out of the 1,969,313) candidates that sat the examination 1,718,090 candidates, representing 87.24%, obtained credit and above in a minimum of any five (5) subjects (i.e. with or without English Language and/or Mathematics). And 754,545 candidates, representing 38.32%, obtained credits and above in a minimum of five (5) subjects, including English Language and Mathematics.
“However, during an internal post-examination review of the released results of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for School Candidates, (SC) 2025, some discrepancies were discovered in the grading of serialized papers. We had earlier informed you that the Council embarked on an innovation (paper serialization) already deployed by a national examination body.
“The Council, being accountable, transparent and credible organization, further investigated all the serialized papers (Mathematics, English Language, Biology and Economics Objective Papers) and discovered that a serialized code file was wrongly used in the printing of English Language Objective Tests (Paper 3), which resulted in them been scored with wrong keys. Nevertheless, the schools that sat WASSCE for School Candidates, 2025, using the Computer-based mode were not affected by this error.
“Consequently, the observable decline in the performance of candidates earlier announced was partly traceable to this absurd situation. The Council sincerely apologises for this imbroglio and deeply regrets the emotional and mental dismay it might have caused the affected candidates and all stakeholders. We have been able to fix the anomaly and candidates can now access their results on the portal (www.waecdirect.org). At this juncture, may I announce the accurate results obtained by candidates.
“1,239,884) candidates representing 62.96%, obtained credits and above in a minimum of five (5) subjects, including English Language and Mathematics
“Of this number, 582,065 representing 46.95% were male candidates, while 657,819 representing 53.05% were female candidates. A comparison of the percentage of candidates in this category in WASSCE for School 2024 and 2025, reveals that in this year’s (2025) WASSCE, there is 9.16% decrease in performance (that is, those who obtained credit and above in a minimum of five (5) subjects, including English Language and Mathematics, as 72.12% of the candidates did that last year.
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“Gentlemen of the Media, as the reviewed results of the WASSCE for School Candidates, 2025 are being uploaded on the results website, candidates should after checking the result online, apply for their Digital certificate which will be released forty-eight (48) hours thereafter. Candidates who have fulfilled their financial obligations to the Council can access their results on the Council’s results website: www.waecdirect.org, within the next twelve hours. Copies of the new Result Listing will be sent to schools shortly.
“Once again, the Management of the West African Examinations Council pleads with all stakeholders to pardon us at this moment. This is very difficult for us to say but we have to admit that it is very embarrassing. We acknowledge the emotional ordeal that candidates, parents, teachers, school administrators, Ministries of Education, the media and other well-meaning stakeholders must have had to deal with. This is a trying time for us at WAEC, we are doing everything we can to ensure that such dismal situation does not recur.”
Many Nigerians and bodies had earlier called for a review of the results, expressing disgust at the manner some candidates even say for the English Language paper. Some wrote the paper at midnight because of alleged leakage and the need to set new questions.
