WASSCE 2025: Pass rate crashes by 33.8% as only 38% secure five credits

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has reported a substantial decline in student performance following the release of the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results for school candidates.

A total of 1,969,313 students across 23,554 secondary schools participated in the examination.

However, only 754,545 candidates—equivalent to 38.32 per cent—earned at least five credits, including in English Language and Mathematics.

READ ALSO: WAEC releases 2025 WASSCE results for school candidates

This represents a sharp 33.8 per cent drop from the 72.12 per cent recorded in the previous year.

At a press conference held on Monday, August 4, 2025, at WAEC’s national office in Yaba, Lagos, the Head of Nigeria National Office, Dr. Amos Dangut, explained that the noticeable dip in performance could be linked to the council’s new initiative of serialising objective test papers across major subjects like English, Mathematics, Biology, and Economics.

“This approach drastically reduced the incidence of collusion and made examination malpractice more difficult. We observed a dip in the performance of objective papers, but essay papers remained consistent with previous years.

It’s a strong signal that candidates must rely on their own preparation,” Dangut said.

The examination was conducted between April 24 and June 20, 2025. Marking and coordination followed shortly after, taking place from July 3 to 21. WAEC also introduced a real-time digital scoring system this year, aimed at boosting both the speed and precision of result processing.

According to WAEC, 1,517,517 candidates, accounting for 77.06 per cent, have had their results fully processed and released.

Meanwhile, 451,796 candidates (22.94 per cent) are still awaiting their results due to some technical issues, which the Council assured would be resolved soon.

Regarding cases of examination misconduct, 192,089 results—representing 9.75 per cent—have been withheld. Offenses cited include the use of prohibited devices such as mobile phones and collusion among candidates. This marks a slight decrease from the 11.92 per cent of results withheld in 2024.

“These unscrupulous elements have become a thorn in the Council’s flesh. Some even use our name to distribute fake messages. We’ve apprehended some of them, and appropriate sanctions will be applied,” Dangut stated.

He further warned that state governments with unpaid debts to the Council would be unable to access the results of candidates whose exams they sponsored until those financial obligations are settled.

WAEC also disclosed that 12,178 candidates with special needs were registered for the 2025 examination.

Among them were 112 visually impaired students, 615 with hearing difficulties, 52 with mental health conditions, and 37 with physical disabilities.

The Council confirmed that all were given the support necessary to enable them to participate effectively.In terms of gender demographics, the Council recorded 976,787 male candidates (49.60 per cent) and 992,526 female candidates (50.40 per cent).

Female candidates outperformed their male counterparts in the core performance category: of the 754,545 candidates who earned five credits including English and Mathematics, 407,353 were females (53.99 per cent), while 347,192 were males (46.01 per cent).

This year also marked a technological milestone for WAEC, as candidates were given the choice of writing their exams using either the traditional paper-and-pencil method or the newly introduced computer-based testing (CBT) format—a significant step toward the Council’s full digital transformation targeted for 2026.

“This year’s exam placed us as a foremost examining body to have conducted an achievement test using a computer-based format,” Dangut said.

WAEC made the 2025 results available to the public on Monday through its official X (formerly Twitter) handle. Candidates have been advised to check their results online by visiting http://waecdirect.org.