The West African Examinations Council has officially released the results for the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination for school candidates. A statement on X on Monday, August 4, 2025, confirmed that candidates can now view their results online.
"The West African Examinations Council is pleased to inform candidates who took WASSCE for School Candidates, 2025 that the results have been officially released today, Monday, August 4, 2025," stated WAEC. Candidates are encouraged to access the Council’s result portal to check their scores.
Dr. Amos Dangut, the Head of the Nigeria National Office of WAEC, held a press briefing at the Council’s national headquarters in Yaba, Lagos, where he described the overall examination as a “huge success” despite logistical and operational challenges.
WAEC reported that 38.32 percent of candidates achieved credits or higher in five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics. Out of 1,969,313 candidates who participated across 23,554 schools, 754,545 candidates attained a minimum of five credits in subjects including English and Mathematics, marking a significant 33.8 percent decline from the 72.12 percent success rate in 2024.
Dangut explained that this drop in performance was primarily due to the Council’s new approach of serializing objective test papers in core subjects like Mathematics, English, Biology, and Economics, which reduced incidents of cheating and made examination malpractice more challenging.
"We noticed a decline in performance on objective papers, but the essay papers remained consistent with previous years. This is a clear indication that candidates need to depend on their own study efforts," he said.
The examination took place between April 24 and June 20, 2025, with coordination and scoring done from July 3 to 21. WAEC implemented a real-time digital scoring system during the marking phase to expedite and enhance result processing.
Regarding the candidates, 1,517,517 (77.06 percent) had their results fully released, while 451,796 (22.94 percent) had pending subjects due to technical issues, which Dangut assured would be resolved shortly.
On the topic of examination malpractice, results of 192,089 candidates, or 9.75 percent, are being withheld for various infractions, including the usage of prohibited mobile phones and cheating, reflecting a minor improvement from the 11.92 percent withheld in 2024.
WAEC cautioned against rogue website operators and compromised supervisors facilitating examination fraud.
“These unscrupulous individuals have become a persistent issue for the Council. Some even use our name to distribute false information. We have apprehended some of them, and suitable penalties will be enforced,” Dangut noted.
He also announced that states with outstanding debts to the Council would be barred from accessing the results of their sponsored candidates until these debts are cleared.
WAEC acknowledged that 12,178 candidates with special needs registered for the examination. Of these, 112 were visually impaired, 615 had hearing impairments, 52 were considered spastic or mentally challenged, and 37 had physical disabilities, all receiving adequate support.
In terms of gender demographics, 976,787 candidates were male (49.60 percent) while 992,526 were female (50.40 percent). Among those who achieved five credits including English and Mathematics, females slightly outperformed males, with females comprising 53.99 percent (407,353) of the successful candidates, while males accounted for 46.01 percent (347,192).
The 2025 WASSCE for school candidates marked the beginning of WAEC’s transition to Computer-Based Testing, allowing candidates to choose between the traditional paper-and-pencil format or a CBT alternative.
“This year’s examination positions us as a leading examination body to have conducted an achievement test using a computer-based format,” Dangut commented.
He indicated that WAEC is preparing to fully digitize the examination process for school candidates by 2026, following a similar approach currently applied in the ongoing CB-WASSCE for private candidates' Second Series.