WAEC has lessons to learn from its 2025 WASSCE results
Twice within five days, last week, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) posted different outcomes of the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
On August 4, the council published results showing that out of a total of 1,969,313 candidates that sat the examination conducted between April 24 and June 20, 1,718,090 candidates – representing 87.24 percent – obtained credit scores and above in a minimum of five subjects with or without English Language and Mathematics, with only 754,545 candidates (38.32 percent) obtaining credit and above in at least five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics.
But the council returned on August 8, to retract. It said upon “an internal post-examination review” of the results earlier announced, it found that 1,794,821 candidates (91.14 percent) obtained credit and above in a minimum of five subjects with or without English Language and Mathematics, while 1,239,884 candidates (62.96 percent) obtained five credits, including English Language and Mathematics.
This marked a 24.64 percentage point improvement on the outcome announced days earlier and brought some relief to candidates and parents, among other stakeholders; though it posted 9.16 percentage underperformance when compared with the 72.12 percent success level achieved in the 2024 edition of the exam.
The examination body had reported that 1,973,365 candidates registered across 23,554 secondary schools for the examination that also held in schools operating the Nigerian curriculum in Benin Republic, Côte d’Ivoire and Equatorial Guinea.
Head of Nigeria National Office of WAEC, Dr. Amos Dangut, blamed the discrepancy in published results on an error in the marking of serialised papers that resulted in misrepresentation of candidates’ performance. Earlier, he had linked candidates’ poor performance this year to the exam body’s efforts to curb malpractice, saying one of the key measures introduced was the serialisation of objective test question papers in Mathematics, English Language, Biology and Economics, which made it difficult for candidates to cheat.
“This approach drastically reduced the incidence of collusion and made examination malpractice more difficult. We observed a dip in the performance in objective papers, but essay papers remained consistent with previous years. It’s a strong signal that candidates must rely on their own preparation,” he had said on Monday.
In his Friday re-briefing, however, Dangut said it was discovered that the English Language Objective Test (Paper 3) was scored using incorrect keys due to a wrongly assigned serialised code file. “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,” he explained.
The WAEC boss was fulsomely apologetic on the council’s behalf for the messy situation. “The observable decline in the performance of candidates earlier announced was partly traceable to this absurd situation. The council sincerely apologises for the imbroglio and deeply regrets the emotional and mental dismay it might have caused the affected candidates and all stakeholders. We have been able to fix the anomaly, and candidates can now access their results on the portal (www.waecdirect.org),” he said.
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Following public outrage over the results it earlier announced, the examination body shut down its results portal, saying it sensed a technical glitch in what was published. It was upon resolution of that glitch it posted reviewed results showing an improvement in candidates’ performance.
By its own narrative, WAEC acknowledged poor mastery of the innovations it introduced to sanitise examination outcomes. This, in our view, is blameworthy, considering the distress caused candidates and parents, among other stakeholders. It is laudable, no doubt, that the council is dealing a hard tackle on examination malpractice; but he who calls a battle must be properly kitted to fight that battle and not be over-awed by what he himself started.
This is why we have always argued that digitalisation of examination processes in this country should be systematised to equip exam administrators with required mastery of innovations being introduced before the roll-out of those innovations. Otherwise, it is the candidates who suffer.
Earlier this year, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) also encountered technical glitches in its conduct of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). But the good thing is that JAMB asked candidates affected to rewrite their papers. This is an option WAEC refused to contemplate, even with the May 28 debacle involving candidates writing Parts II and III (Objectives and Theory) of the English Language paper at nightfall.
If WAEC wouldn’t brook reconducting the crucial paper in which mass failure was widely foreseen, the least it could have done was take that circumstance into consideration in its overall grading of the examination. Its failure to do that largely contributed to the messy situation over the 2025 WASSCE results, and lessons should be learnt.
