WAEC releases reviewed results, says discrepancies embarrassing

The West African Examinations Council, Nigeria, has released reviewed results for the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination, admitting that grading discrepancies significantly distorted candidates’ performance statistics.

Speaking during a press briefing on Friday at the council’s national office in Yaba, Lagos, the Head of WAEC Nigeria, Dr Amos Dangut, described the development as “embarrassing” and issued an apology to all stakeholders.

“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.

He explained that the discrepancies arose from an error in the marking of serialised papers due to a wrongly assigned serialised code file. The affected subjects included English Language, Mathematics, Biology, and Economics.

According to Dangut, WAEC had introduced a new security innovation known as paper serialisation, which had already been adopted by another national examination body. However, a post-examination review revealed that the English Language Objective Test (Paper 3) was marked using incorrect keys.

“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,” he added.

Following the correction of the error, 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). Out of these, 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. However, the performance still reflects a 9.16 per cent drop from the 72.12 per cent recorded in 2024.

WAEC disclosed that a total of 1,969,313 candidates sat for the examination, including those from schools in Benin Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, and Equatorial Guinea, which operate the Nigerian curriculum.

The council also accommodated 12,178 special needs candidates, including the visually impaired (112), hearing impaired (615), physically challenged (37), and spastic/mentally challenged (52). Their results have also been processed and released.

“All these candidates were adequately provided for in the administration of the examination,” Dangut said.

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 that efforts are ongoing to complete processing and release the outstanding results shortly.

Meanwhile, results of 191,053 candidates (9.7 per cent) have been withheld over allegations of examination malpractice. This marks a reduction from the 11.92 per cent recorded in 2024. Investigations are ongoing, and affected candidates have been advised to lodge complaints 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 warned.

Candidates have been urged to check their results through 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 also reminded that candidates sponsored by indebted state governments will not be able to access their results until payment is made.

“We appeal to the concerned authorities to do the needful to enable affected schools and candidates access their results,” he said.

Offering an unreserved apology to stakeholders, Dangut said, “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.”

WAEC expressed gratitude to the Federal Government, the Minister of Education, and state education authorities for their support during the review and resolution process.