UPDATED: WAEC reviewing 2025 WASSCE result over glitches, halts result checker

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) said it is reviewing the recently released results of the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for School Candidates, after it discovered technical issues in the results.

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In a statement by its spokesperson, Moyosola Adesina, WAEC said the technical issues were discovered during an internal review of the results released on Monday.

The examination body has, therefore, temporarily restricted access to the result checker pending the conclusion of the review.

“On this note, candidates who have previously checked their results are advised to re-check after 24 hours from now,” the body said.

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What happened

WAEC explained that it had deployed an innovation of serialising papers to curb examination malpractice. It said the serialisation was deployed for Mathematics, English Language, Biology and Economics.

“However, an internal post result release procedure revealed some technical bugs in the results,” it said.

The examination body said it is urgently reviewing the technical glitches that led to the situation to correct them.

“We extend our deep and sincere apologies to all affected candidates and the general public. We appreciate their patience and understanding as we work diligently to resolve this matter with transparency and urgency within the next 24 hours,” it said.

“WAEC remains committed to upholding excellence, fairness and transparency in all our assessment processes.”

WASSCE 2025

The 2025 school candidates (May/June) results, released by the examination on Monday, made a record as the worst WASSCE performance in more than a decade.

This year’s result revealed that only 38 per cent of the candidates secured at least a credit in five subjects, including English and Mathematics, a prerequisite for admission into Nigerian tertiary institutions.

Nigeria only had a record this low in 2014 when only 29.27 per cent of the candidates obtained credit in at least five subjects, including English and Mathematics. The 2014 result itself was better than those of 2013 and 2012.

However, the pass rate has improved from 65 per cent in 2020, 81 per cent in 2021, 76 per cent in 2022, 79 per cent in 2023 and 72 per cent in the 2024 edition of the examination.

Concerning trend

With this update, WAEC has joined the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in admitting that technical glitches affect candidates’ results.

JAMB faced immense public criticism earlier this year after it found that glitches affected candidates’ Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) scores.

Since the WASSCE results were released, the examination body has faced criticism from the public, accusing it of toying with the future of the young students.

One Nigerian lawmaker, Chinedu Ogah, a member of the House of Representatives, recently threatened to sue the examination body should it fail to release the withheld results of over 192,000 candidates.

Success in both the WASSCE and UTME is a prerequisite for consideration for admission into Nigerian tertiary institutions.