The West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Nigeria, has released corrected results for the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for school candidates, following the discovery of a grading error that significantly distorted performance statistics.
Speaking at a press conference on Friday at WAEC’s national office in Yaba, Lagos, the Head of WAEC Nigeria, Dr. Amos Dangut, admitted that the error stemmed from a mistake in marking serialised papers, which misrepresented candidates’ results.
“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 council had introduced a new security feature known as paper serialisation, already in use by another national examining body. However, during post-examination checks, it was discovered that the English Language Objective Test (Paper 3) was graded with the wrong answer keys due to a misassigned serialised code file. Other affected 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,” he explained.
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After the correction, 1,794,821 candidates — representing 91.14 per cent — obtained credit and above in at least five subjects (with or without English and Mathematics). Of these, 1,239,884 candidates, or 62.96 per cent, achieved five credits including English and Mathematics, up from the earlier reported 38.32 per cent. The total included 657,819 females (53.05 per cent) and 582,065 males (46.95 per cent).
A total of 1,969,313 candidates took the examination, including candidates from schools in Benin Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, and Equatorial Guinea. WAEC also processed results for 12,178 special needs candidates, including those with visual, hearing, and physical impairments.
So far, 1,763,470 candidates (89.55 per cent) have had their results fully processed, while 205,916 (10.45 per cent) have some subjects pending due to technical issues. Results of 191,053 candidates (9.7 per cent) are being withheld over suspected examination malpractice, a drop from 11.92 per cent in 2024.
WAEC urged affected candidates to lodge complaints via waecinternational.org/complaints and assured that all outstanding results would be released soon. Candidates can check their results at www.waecdirect.org and apply for digital certificates within 48 hours of verification, while hard copies will be available in 90 days.
Dangut also reminded that candidates sponsored by indebted state governments would not be able to access their results until such debts were cleared.
“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 added, thanking the Federal Government, the Minister of Education, and state education bodies for their support during the review process.
