The West African Examinations Council, WAEC has released revised results for the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination, WASSCE for school candidates following the discovery of a marking error in one of the key subjects.
Speaking at a press briefing in Lagos, the Head of the Nigeria National Office of WAEC, Dr. Amos Josiah Dangut, expressed “deep sorrow and regret” over the situation, which he described as “embarrassing” for the Council.
According to Dr. Dangut, the initial results released on August 4 reflected a significant drop in candidates’ performance due in part to an error in the grading of the English Language Objective Test (Paper 3). The mistake occurred after a wrong serialized code file was used during printing, leading to the use of incorrect marking keys.
“This was an internal error during the implementation of our paper serialization innovation,” Dangut said. “We sincerely apologise to the affected candidates and stakeholders. The anomaly has now been fixed, and the accurate results are available on our portal.”
A total of 1,969,313 candidates sat for the 2025 examination in Nigeria and in some Nigerian-curriculum schools in Benin Republic, Cote d’Ivoire and Equatorial Guinea. Of this number, 976,787 were male (49.60%) and 992,526 female (50.40%).
Following the review, 1,794,821 candidates (91.14%) obtained credits and above in at least five subjects (with or without English and Mathematics), while 1,239,884 candidates (62.96%) achieved credits and above in five subjects including English Language and Mathematics. This represents a 9.16% drop compared to the 2024 performance.
Candidates with special needs also took part in the exams, including 112 visually challenged, 615 with impaired hearing, 52 spastic/mentally challenged, and 37 physically challenged candidates — all of whose results have been released.
Results for 205,916 candidates (10.45%) are still being processed due to various technical issues, while 191,053 results (9.7%) remain withheld over suspected examination malpractice.
The Council noted that the malpractice figure was 2.22% lower than in 2024 and that affected candidates can seek redress via WAEC’s complaints portal.
WAEC urged indebted state governments to settle outstanding fees so results of their sponsored candidates can be released. Candidates are advised to check their results via www.waecdirect.org and apply for their digital certificates, which will be ready within 48 hours. Printed certificates for fully processed results will be available within 90 days.
“This is a trying time for us,” Dangut said, appealing for understanding from parents, schools, and government authorities. “We are putting measures in place to ensure such an occurrence never happens again.”
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