West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has temporarily withdrawn the 2025 WASSCE results following multiple reports of technical glitches reported during the conduct of the exam.
On Monday, the examination body released the 2025 results, which showed that only 38.32 per cent of the 1,969,313 candidates who sat the 2025 WASSCE obtained credits and above in five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics, the worst performance recorded in a decade.
This development has sparked outrage, raising similarities with the glitch issue which affected candidates during the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTM) organised by the Joint Administration Matriculation Board (JAMB).
In a notice issued by the Acting Head of Public Affairs for WAEC in Nigeria, Mrs Moyosola Adesina, on Thursday, it was revealed that an internal review showed that there were some issues.
The body said these issues arose from a newly introduced paper serialization process aimed at curbing exam malpractice in subjects such as Mathematics, English Language, Biology, and Economics.
“[WAEC] sincerely regrets to inform the general public of technical issues discovered during the internal review of the recently released results of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for School Candidates, (SC) 2025.
“As part of our efforts to curb examination malpractice, the Council embarked on an innovation (paper serialization) already deployed by a national examination body. It is also worth noting that this is in line with best practices in assessment. The paper serialization was carried out in Mathematics, English Language, Biology and Economics. However, an internal post result release procedure revealed some technical bugs in the results,” the statement said.
As a result of the glitches, access to the results has been temporarily suspended on the result checker portal while corrections are made.
WAEC apologized to all affected candidates and the general public, urging patience and understanding.
Candidates are advised to re-check their results after 24 hours, as the council works to resolve the problem with urgency and transparency.
“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 twenty-four (24) hours. On this note, candidates who have previously checked their results are advised to re-check after 24 hours from now.
“WAEC remains committed to upholding excellence, fairness and transparency in all our assessment processes,” the statement added.