Just as Nigerians were just recovering from the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board’s (JAMB) errors in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), the West African Examination Council (WAEC) abruptly reversed the 2025 WASSCE results.
JAMB, on May 14, in a twist of events, admitted to errors in the 2025 UTME and rescheduled the examination.
Ishaq Oloyede, registrar at JAMB, said, “I apologise for the trauma caused to the candidates. What should have been a moment of joy has changed due to one or two errors.”
He further explained that though the board had put all machinery in place, errors still occurred.
Similarly, WAEC, on August 8, disclosed that the council discovered some discrepancies in the grading of serialised papers – after announcing the 2025 WASSCE results with observable performance decline.
Amos Dangut, head of national office for WAEC Nigeria, explained that the council had investigated all the serialised papers such as Mathematics, English Language, Biology and Economics Objective Papers, and discovered that a wrong serialised code was used in the printing of English Language Objective Tests (Paper 3). This, he said, resulted in the scripts being scored with incorrect answer keys.
“The observable decline in the performance of candidates earlier announced 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,” he said.
The errors recorded in the two examination bodies go far beyond a mere ‘glitch’; they are a breach of trust capable of rewriting the life stories of millions of young Nigerians in unpleasant ways.
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Rebuilding public trust
The emotional toll can be devastating, experts say, noting that it erodes confidence, fuels cynicism, and in some cases, pushes students off the academic track altogether.
Ayodeji Ajibade, director of the Entrepreneurship Development Centre at Babcock University, said there’s a need to overhaul the current examination system to make it more professional, effective, and efficient.
“We do not have to keep doing things the way they’ve been done over the years. If the government allows the private sector to propose a workable solution, with the guarantee of implementing its recommendations, this can be corrected,” he said.
He emphasised that the existing government-controlled system has failed the country and should be dismantled.
Jessica Osuere, chief executive officer at RubiesHub Educational Services, said there is something systematically wrong with the Nigerian examination bodies.
“These problems stem from several intertwined factors – the loss of experienced staff to better-paying sectors or overseas opportunities, weak and inconsistent leadership, reliance on inadequately trained and/or poorly vetted examiners, and a general decline in the quality of teachers feeding the system, among others,” she said.
Osuere criticised JAMB and WAEC managements for the huge embarrassment meted out to the country, which caused psychological trauma to the teeming youth who took the examinations.
“These issues call into question all the previously written exams and results released. How are we sure the previous results truly reflected the true performance of the examinees?” she noted.
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Osuere said there is a need for comprehensive reforms of public exam bodies through the strengthening of institutional leadership, retention of skilled personnel through competitive incentives, and improvement of examiner recruitment and training.
She said the exam bodies need to leverage technology for accuracy and transparency.
Adeola Eze, an education expert, said the examination bodies must begin with rigorous pre-release testing, simulating the release of results under real-world conditions to identify and resolve technical failures before candidates are notified of their results.
“When errors occur, there must be transparent errata protocols, providing formal ‘result correction notices’ that clearly explain the problem, detail the fix, and reassure candidates that the correction is final,” Eze said.
Osuere also emphasised that the government and private school managers should invest in the broader education system to raise teaching standards.
“Only a deliberate, systemic overhaul can rebuild the trust once enjoyed by these bodies,” she said.
Christopher Nmeribe, a teacher, emphasised that the drop in the quality of teachers, especially in public secondary schools, is part of the reasons for poor outcomes in the various examinations.
“High-quality teaching fuels a high standard of performance. There is an equality of success opportunities generated through high-teacher quality,” he said.
Kelvin Bob-Manuel, marketing communications strategist at West Africa Vocational Education, highlighted the role of leadership in public institutions.
“These are individuals who have consistently shown deep commitment to improving learning outcomes and have made the needed impact,” he said.
