The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has announced that 62.96% of candidates passed core subjects after a WASSCE 2025 results review.
Initially released on August 4, 2025, the results showed a 38.32% pass rate, sparking widespread outcry from parents and candidates.
Following the public outcry, WAEC shut down the Result portal, announcing a WASSCE 2025 results review.
In a press briefing on Friday, at the council’s national office in Yaba, Lagos, the Head of WAEC Nigeria, Dr. Amos Dangut, admitted to a serious error in the marking of serialised papers, which led to a misrepresentation of candidates’ performance.
He said: “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.”
According to him, the council had implemented a new security innovation known as paper serialisation, already in use by another national examination body.
However, during post-examination reviews, it was discovered that the English Language Objective Test (Paper 3) was scored using incorrect keys due to a wrongly assigned serialised code file.
Other serialised 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. It is important to note that candidates who wrote the exams using the computer-based mode were not affected,” Dangut explained.
With the error corrected, WAEC reported that 1,794,821 candidates, accounting for 91.14 percent, achieved credit and above in at least five subjects, regardless of their performance in English and Mathematics.
Among these, 1,239,884 candidates, or 62.96 percent, secured five credits that included both English and Mathematics.
This represents an improvement compared to the earlier figure of 38.32 percent for those obtaining five credits in these key subjects.
Of this number, 657,819 (53.05 per cent) were female, while 582,065 (46.95 per cent) were male candidates.
However, this still reflects a 9.16 per cent drop from the 72.12 per cent performance recorded in 2024.
