WAEC Admits Errors In 2025 WASSCE Results Set To Review Four key Subjects

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has admitted there were technical errors in the recently released 2025 WASSCE results and announced plans to urgently review four core subjects: Mathematics, English Language, Biology, and Economics.

The council made the announcement in a statement on Thursday, August 7, following widespread criticism over the poor performance of candidates and growing calls for cancellation of the results.

WAEC released the 2025 May/June school exam results on Monday, August 4, for 1,969,313 candidates from 23,554 schools. However, only 38.32% of candidates — 754,545 in total — earned credits and above in at least five subjects including Mathematics and English. This represents a sharp 33.8% drop from the 72.12% recorded in 2024.

The massive decline triggered public backlash, with some stakeholders demanding a complete withdrawal of the results, and a federal lawmaker calling for the release of results withheld from 192,089 candidates over alleged exam malpractice.

In her statement, WAEC’s acting Public Affairs Officer, Mrs Moyosola Adesina, explained that the council had introduced an innovation known as “paper serialisation” to combat cheating. The system was applied in the four affected subjects.

However, WAEC said a post-release review revealed technical bugs in the implementation, which affected the accuracy of the results.

“In line with our values of fairness and professionalism, WAEC has decided to urgently review and correct these technical issues. As a result, access to the results has been temporarily suspended,” the statement read.

WAEC expressed regret over the disruption and assured the public that the errors would be corrected within 24 hours. Affected candidates were advised to recheck their results after that time.

Meanwhile, the council confirmed that the results of 192,089 candidates — about 9.75% of the total — remain withheld due to examination malpractice investigations. This is a slight improvement from the 11.92% withheld in 2024.

WAEC reaffirmed its commitment to transparency, fairness, and service delivery in all assessment processes.