WAEC corrects grading error, releases reviewed 2025 results

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) Nigeria has released revised results for the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for school candidates, following the discovery of grading discrepancies that significantly affected candidates’ performance statistics.

Announcing the development at a press briefing on Friday in Yaba, Lagos, WAEC Nigeria’s Head, Dr. Amos Dangut, admitted to a serious error in the marking of serialised papers, which led to a misrepresentation of results.

“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,” he said.

According to Dangut, the council had introduced a new security feature, known as paper serialisation, already in use by another national examination body. However, post-examination reviews revealed that the English Language Objective Test (Paper 3) was scored using incorrect answer keys due to a wrongly assigned serialised code file. Other affected subjects included Mathematics, Biology, and Economics.

“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. Candidates who wrote the exams using the computer-based mode were not affected,” Dangut explained.

Following the correction, 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 this number, 1,239,884 candidates, or 62.96 per cent, obtained five credits including English and Mathematics, a sharp improvement from the previously reported 38.32 per cent.

The revised statistics show that 657,819 candidates (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.

A total of 1,969,313 candidates sat for the examination, including students from Benin Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, and Equatorial Guinea, which operate the Nigerian curriculum. WAEC also processed and released results for 12,178 special needs candidates, including the visually impaired (112), hearing impaired (615), physically challenged (37), and spastic/mentally challenged (52).