The West African Examinations Council, Nigeria, has released reviewed results for the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination, for school candidates, following the discovery of grading discrepancies that significantly affected candidates’ performance statistics.
In a press briefing on Friday, at the council’s national office in Yaba, Lagos, the Head of WAEC Nigeria, Dr. Amos Dangut, admitted to a serious error in the marking of serialised papers, which led to a misrepresentation of candidates’ performance.
“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 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 corrected, 1,794,821 candidates — representing 91.14 per cent— obtained credit and above in a minimum of five subjects (with or without English and Mathematics).
Notably, 1,239,884 candidates or 62.96 per cent, obtained five credits, including English and Mathematics, a significant improvement from the previously reported 38.32 per cent.
Of this number, 657,819 (53.05 per cent) were female, while 582,065 (46.95 per cent) were male candidates.
However, this still reflects a 9.16 per cent drop from the 72.12 per cent performance recorded in 2024.
WAEC reported that a total of 1,969,313 candidates sat for the examination, including candidates from schools in Benin Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, and Equatorial Guinea, which operate the Nigerian curriculum.
The council also catered to 12,178 special needs candidates, including the visually impaired (112), hearing impaired (615), physically challenged (37), and spastic/mentally challenged (52). These candidates’ results 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 candidates (89.55 per cent) have had their results fully processed, 205,916 (10.45 per cent) still have one or more subjects pending due to technical issues.
WAEC assured all that efforts are ongoing to conclude processing and release outstanding results shortly.
Meanwhile, results of 191,053 candidates (9.7 per cent) have been withheld over allegations of examination malpractice.
This is lower than the 11.92 per cent recorded in 2024.
Investigations are ongoing, and affected candidates can seek redress via 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 encouraged candidates to access their results via the official portal www.waecdirect.org and apply for their digital certificates, which will be available within 48 hours after result verification. Hard copy certificates will be ready within 90 days.
Dangut reminded all that candidates sponsored by indebted state governments would not have access to their results until the council receives payment.
“We appeal to the concerned authorities to do the needful to enable affected schools and candidates to access their results,” he urged.
Dangut offered an unreserved apology to stakeholders.
“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 also thanked the Federal Government, the Minister of Education, and state education bodies for their support during the review and resolution process.
