Sloppy WAEC

 Like Coach Fanny Amun’s famous coinage that stuck though he later denied using the exact phrase, the West African Examination Council (WAEC) ‘wombled and fumbled’ to declaring the results of the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE). The council, last week, published an outcome on which it shortly after backpedalled. On Friday, it announced that 62.96 percent of candidates who sat the examination obtained credit scores and above in a minimum of five subjects including English Language and Mathematics. Earlier in the week, it reported 38.32 percent success rate, which would have been the worst outcome posted by the council in that examination in over a decade.

The exam body reported that a total of 1,969,313 candidates sat the examination conducted between 24th April and 20th June, 2025, out of 1,973,365 candidates that registered across 23,554 recognised secondary schools in Nigeria. The examination 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, said at a press parley in Lagos on Friday that 1,794,821 candidates – representing 91.14 percent – obtained credit and above in a minimum of five subjects with or without English Language and Mathematics. In a relief to candidates and parents, among other stakeholders, he added that 1,239,884 candidates (62.96 percent) obtained five credits including English Language and Mathematics. This revised up the figures he posted on Monday, namely that 1,718,090 candidates (87.24 percent) obtained credit scores and above in a minimum of five subjects with or without English Language and Mathematics, while only 754,545 candidates (38.32 percent) obtained credit and above in at least five subjects including English Language and Mathematics. The new tally reflected a 9.16 percentage point drop in performance compared with the 72.12 percent success rate in the 2024 edition, but was better than the 33.8 percentage point difference reported on Monday.

Dangut, at the Friday briefing, owned up to an error in the marking of serialised papers, which led to a misrepresentation of candidates’ performance. Earlier, he had linked candidates’ poor performance this year to the council’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. 

On Friday, however, he acknowledged that 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. “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. 

Of the total number of candidates, WAEC said 1,763,470 candidates (89.55 percent) had their results fully processed, while 205,916 (10.45 percent) had one or more subjects pending owing to technical issues. The examination body assured that efforts were underway to conclude processing and release of outstanding results shortly. Meanwhile, results for 191,053 candidates (9.7 percent) were withheld for various offences including use of mobile phones by candidates and group cheating. This marked a slight improvement on the 2024 edition where 11.92 percent of the results were withheld. “WAEC will continue to sanction all cases of examination malpractice. All hands must be on deck to sanitise the system,” Dangut stressed.

“It is debatable that the high failure rate in this year’s WASSCE owes mainly to inability of candidates to cheat as WAEC argued”

At the briefing on Monday, the examination body had found some ground for chest-thumping, with the council boss noting that the 2025 WASSCE marked the beginning of transitioning to computer-based testing (CBT) of school candidates, as they were allowed to choose between the traditional paper-and-pencil mode or the CBT mode. “This year’s exam placed us as a foremost examining body to have conducted an achievement test using a computer-based format,” he said, adding that WAEC was preparing to fully digitalise the examination process for school candidates by 2026, following after the transition in school certificate examination sat by private candidates that is in its second edition. The mood on Friday was, however, far from being exultant as Dangut offered an unreserved apology to stakeholders. “We acknowledge the emotional ordeal that candidates, parents, teachers, school administrators, ministries of education and the media must have endured. This is a trying time for us at WAEC. We are doing everything we can to ensure this dismal situation does not recur,” he said. 

It is true that the current generation of pupils are no longer studious and aren’t primed for academic excellence like past generations. But it is also debatable that the high failure rate in this year’s WASSCE owes mainly to inability of candidates to cheat as WAEC argued. The council’s operational competence was as well a major culprit. There were at least two occasions in May when pupils wrote examinations with dim illumination at nightfall. Most notable was on 28th May when candidates in Lagos, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Kwara, Benue and Taraba states, among others, sat Parts II and III (Objectives and Theory) of the English Language paper till about 9p.m. on the average and close to midnight in Taraba particularly. The candidates had taken Part I of the paper (Oral English) in the morning and were waiting to sit the remainder in the early afternoon, only to encounter a delay by which the question paper did not arrive most centres until dusk. In most places, centres were illuminated with phone torches and other makeshift lamps to enable the pupils to write exams at nightfall.

Way back from then, the poor outcome of the examination was a debacle foreseen. But WAEC did not deem it necessary to remediate as school proprietors, teachers and parents, among other stakeholders, canvassed. On the day of the nighttime exam, for instance, a teacher in Osun was reported saying: “It is a frustrating experience. We never planned to stay this late, but officials of WAEC insisted the exam should be held today. We had to use phone torchlights to illuminate the hall. There may be mass failure in the subject due to this. Many parents have been calling us about the whereabouts of their children, we had to explain to them about the change (of schedule). We started the exam at 7p.m. and ended by 9p.m.” A school proprietress in Taraba confirmed that her pupils finished their exam at midnight and voiced her concern over the emotional and physical toll on the students, many of who waited in school throughout the day. “As teenagers, they needed to be well-fed and in the right frame of mind to write such a critical paper. I had to take full responsibility for their welfare,” she said. The proprietress alleged poor logistical arrangement on the part of the exam body, saying she personally drove out in heavy rain that night to pick up supervisors so the examination could hold. Parents who went in search of their wards only to be told they were taking the English paper late described the arrangement as uncalled for. They said WAEC could have postponed the examination rather than subject the candidates – mostly teenagers – to such hardship, especially as many had to take another subject the next day. 

WAEC apologised for the delay that it attributed to efforts aimed at safeguarding the integrity of the exam after the English Language paper was compromised. It, however, spurned calls for immediate remediation. If the exam body cared to check, it might find that the overall failure rate is more strictly connected to candidates’ failure in the English Language paper. Many stakeholders had advised that the paper be cancelled and retaken by the candidates. But the council apparently think its system too foolproof to warrant such concession. Well, it should know better now.

The least you would expect is that the exam body would skew its score grading system to reflect the challenges candidates encountered in the course of writing the papers. The results announced on Monday obviously did not countenance such possibility, and many people suspect that may actually be what the council was eventually forced to reconsider following the public outrage sparked by its earlier announcement. But that reconsideration came rather late, and at the cost of denting the credibility of the whole examination and the integrity of WAEC itself. Sad.