The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has admitted making errors in the results released earlier this week for the 2025 Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE). Following a review, the Council announced that 1,239,884 candidates – representing 62.9% of the 1,969,313 who sat for the exam – now have credit passes in five subjects or more, including English Language and Mathematics.
This new figure is a marked improvement compared to the initially announced 754,545 candidates (38.32%) who were reported to have attained that standard.
At a press briefing in Lagos on Friday, WAEC’s Head of National Office, Dr. Amos Dangut, acknowledged lapses in the marking of some objective papers, admitting that these contributed to the initial drop in reported performance. He explained that during a post-release review, the Council discovered discrepancies in grading serialized versions of certain subjects.
According to Dangut, WAEC had adopted paper serialization – an approach already in use by another national examination body – for the objective sections of Mathematics, English Language, Biology, and Economics. However, a technical error occurred when a wrong serialized code file was used for the English Language Objective Test (Paper 3), resulting in scripts being scored with incorrect answer keys.
He clarified that this problem did not affect candidates who took the exam through the computer-based mode. Still, the mix-up significantly impacted the performance figures announced earlier in the week.
“With deep regret and on behalf of the Council, I tender our unreserved apology for the distress this situation has caused candidates, parents, teachers, and other stakeholders,” Dangut said. “We have corrected the anomaly, and the updated results are now available on our portal.”
The revised statistics show that 1,239,884 candidates (62.96%) secured credits in at least five subjects, including English and Mathematics. Of these, 582,065 were male (46.95%), and 657,819 were female (53.05%). When compared to 2024’s performance – where 72.12% achieved this benchmark – the 2025 results still reflect a 9.16% decline.
Candidates can now check their updated results via www.waecdirect.org, and those who have met all financial obligations to the Council will be able to access their digital certificates within 48 hours. Updated result listings will also be sent to schools.
Dangut urged all candidates to recheck their results to ensure they are viewing the corrected versions. While he confirmed that the issue has been resolved, he did not comment on possible disciplinary measures for those responsible for the error.
The development follows widespread criticism of the initially released results. Many parents and educators were shocked by unexpectedly low English Language scores, particularly among high-performing students in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
One parent, whose child scored an impressive 368 in the UTME and earned distinctions in eight WASSCE subjects, was dismayed to find that the child had failed English in the initial SSCE results. Stories like this prompted calls for a thorough review.
This incident comes just months after JAMB faced its own technical glitches during the UTME, which forced the body to reschedule examinations for affected candidates.
In his closing remarks, Dangut described the episode as “deeply embarrassing” for WAEC and assured the public that new measures are being put in place to prevent a recurrence. “This is a trying moment for us, but we are committed to upholding the trust and confidence the public places in our examinations,” he said.
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