WAEC Addresses Grading Discrepancies in 2025 Examination Results
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has released revised results for the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination, acknowledging that grading errors significantly impacted the accuracy of candidates’ performance statistics. The council’s Head in Nigeria, Dr. Amos Dangut, described the situation as “embarrassing” and issued an apology to all stakeholders involved.
During a press briefing held at the council’s national office in Yaba, Lagos, Dr. Dangut expressed deep regret over the discrepancies found in the grading of serialised papers. He emphasized the importance of transparency and accountability, stating that the council must admit its mistakes despite the difficulty of doing so.
The error stemmed from a mistake in the marking of serialised papers due to an incorrectly assigned serialised code file. The affected subjects included English Language, Mathematics, Biology, and Economics. This issue was identified during a post-examination review, which revealed that the English Language Objective Test (Paper 3) had been marked using incorrect answer keys.
Dr. Dangut explained that the council had introduced a new security innovation called paper serialisation, which had already been adopted by another national examination body. However, this innovation led to the error when the wrong code file was used in the printing process. It is important to note that candidates who took the exams through the computer-based mode were not affected by this issue.
After correcting the error, 1,794,821 candidates—representing 91.14 per cent—achieved credit and above in at least 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, which marks a significant improvement from the previously reported 38.32 per cent.
Among these candidates, 657,819 (53.05 per cent) were female, while 582,065 (46.95 per cent) were male. Despite this progress, the overall performance still reflects a 9.16 per cent drop compared to the 72.12 per cent recorded in 2024.
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 follow 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,” Dr. 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 due to allegations of examination malpractice. This represents 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,” Dr. 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.
Dr. 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, Dr. 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.