The West African Examination Council (WAEC) has announced a review of the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate (WASSCE) results, with 62.96 percent scoring credits in a minimum of five subjects, including English and Mathematics.
Amos Dangut, head of National Office, WAEC Nigeria, made this known to journalists on Friday in Lagos, when he expressed regrets for the inconveniences the earlier released results might have caused Nigerians.
“1,239,884 candidates representing 62.96 percent, obtained credits and above in a minimum of five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics.
“Of this number, 582,065 representing 46.95 percent were male candidates, while 657,819 representing 53.05 percent were female candidates.,” he said.
Dangut said that a comparison of the percentage of candidates in this category in WASSCE for School 2024 and 2025 reveals that in 2025 WASSCE, there is 9.16 percent decrease in performance. That is, those who obtained credit and above in a minimum of five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics, was 72.12 percent.
Recall that on Monday, August 4, WAEC had announced that 32.32 percent candidates out of the 1,969, 313 that sat the examination obtained a minimum of five credits including English and Mathematics.
The WAEC Nigeria, HNO said in the council’s internal review, some discrepancies were discovered which led to reviewing the results.
“However, during an internal post-examination review of the released results of the 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,” he said.
Consequently, he said this led to the observable decline in the performance of candidates earlier announced. He said this 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),” he said.
Reviewed result for WASSCE (SC) 2025
WAEC reaffirmed that a total of 1,969,313 candidates sat the examination. The examination was also administered to candidates from some schools in Benin Republic, Cote d’Ivoire and Equatorial Guinea, where the Nigerian curriculum for senior secondary schools is being used.
“I also wish to report that a total of 12,178 candidates with varying degrees of Special Needs registered for the examination. Out of this number, 112 were visually challenged, 615 had impaired hearing; 52 were spastic cum mentally challenged and 37 were physically challenged.
“All these candidates were adequately provided for, in the administration of the examination. The results of these candidates have been processed and are also now being released along with those of other candidates,” Dangut noted.
Results being processed
WAEC announced that out of the total number of candidates that sat the examination in Nigeria, 1,763,470 candidates, representing 89.55 percent, have their results fully processed and released while 205,916 candidates, representing 10.45 percent, have one or more of their subjects still being processed due to some issues to be resolved.
The analysis of statistics of candidates’ performance in the examination shows that out of the 1,969,313 candidates that sat the examination, 1,794,821 candidates, representing 91.14 percent, obtained credit and above in a minimum of any five subjects (that is with or without English Language and/or Mathematics).
Out of 62.96 percent with five credits including English and Mathematics, 582,065 representing 46.95 percent, were male candidates, while 657,819 representing 53.05 percent 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 percent decrease in performance.
