WAEC releases revised 2025 results after grading errors
By Anas Abbas
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) in Nigeria has announced the release of revised results for the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for school candidates, following the identification of grading errors that impacted performance statistics.
During a press briefing held at WAEC’s national office in Yaba, Lagos, Dr. Amos Dangut, the Head of WAEC Nigeria, expressed regret over the discrepancies, particularly in the marking of serialised papers.
Dr. Dangut revealed that a new security feature known as paper serialisation, which had been successfully implemented by another national examination body, led to errors in scoring the English Language Objective Test (Paper 3).
This was due to the use of an incorrect serialised code file during the marking process. Other affected subjects included Mathematics, Biology, and Economics.
He clarified that candidates who took the exams via computer-based testing were not impacted by these issues.After correcting the errors, WAEC reported that 1,794,821 candidates 91.14% achieved credit or higher in at least five subjects, regardless of whether they included English and Mathematics.
Specifically, 1,239,884 candidates (62.96%) obtained five credits including both English and Mathematics, a significant increase from the previously reported figure of 38.32%. Among those who achieved this milestone, 53.05% were female and 46.95% were male.
Despite these improvements, there was still a decline in overall performance compared to the previous year, with a 9.16% drop from the 72.12% success rate recorded in 2024.
A total of 1,969,313 candidates sat for the examination, including students from neighboring countries like Benin Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, and Equatorial Guinea.
WAEC also highlighted its commitment to inclusivity by processing results for 12,178 special needs candidates.
“While 1,763,470 candidates (89.55%) had their results fully processed, 205,916 (10.45%) still had pending subjects due to technical issues. The council is actively working to finalize these outstanding results”.
Additionally, results for 191,053 candidates (9.7%) have been withheld due to allegations of examination malpractice, a reduction from the previous year’s rate of 11.92%.
Investigations are ongoing, and affected candidates can seek redress through WAEC’s official complaints portal.
Dr. Dangut also explained that WAEC’s commitment to tackling examination malpractice and encouraged candidates to access their results via the official website.
He also noted that candidates sponsored by state governments with outstanding debts would not have access to their results until payments are made.