The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has revealed the performance in the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination results for school candidates stating that the 2024 candidates did better.

Following the release of the 2025 WASSCE results the Head of Nigeria National Office, Dr Amos Dangut speaking at a press briefing on Monday, August 4, 2025, at WAEC’s national headquarters in Yaba, Lagos, stated that only 38.32% candidates obtained up to five credits including English Language and Mathematics.

According to Dangut, out of a total of 1,969,313 candidates who sat the examination across 23,554 schools, only 754,545 candidates could get up to five credits.

The sharp decline in scores at 33.8 per cent marks against the 72.12 per cent recorded in 2024.

In his speech, Dangut linked the poor performances to the new approach of the Council of serializing objective test papers in key subjects such as English, Mathematics, Biology, and Economics.

He noted that the approach could affect the performance of students because they could not engage in exam malpractice.

He said; “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.

The 2025 SSCE examination held April 24 and June 20, 2025, while coordination and marking took place from July 3 to 21 wherein the board deployed a real-time digital scoring system to enhance the speed and accuracy of result processing.

As at press time, only 1,517,517 (77.06 per cent) out of the total number of students who sat for the exam had their results fully processed and released.

Meanwhile, WAEC has assured that the remaining 451,796 (22.94 per cent) whose results are still being processed due to technical issues would be released soon.

However, the board revealed that a total lf 192,089 results (9.75 per) are currently being withheld for examination Malpractice.

The offenders includes students who used banned mobile phones and collusion.

However, compared to the 11.92 results withheld on 2024 for exam malpractice, the 9.75% in 2025 marks an improvement.

Dangut noted that those who engaged in exam malpractice have made things difficult for the council as he listed some who use the name of the council to distribute fake messages.

He however, noted that some of such people have been apprehended already.

He further called on to states who are still owing WAEC noting that they would not be able to access the results of their sponsored candidates until outstanding debts are cleared.

According to him, 12,178 candidates with special needs registered for the 2025 WASSCE among whom 615 had hearing challenges, 52 were mentally challenged, and 37 had physical disabilities and provided with necessary support by the council through the exam.

On gender distribution, 976,787 candidates (49.60%) for the 2025 examination were male, while 992,526 (50.40%) were female.

Meanwhile, out of the total of 38.8% who passed with five credits including English and Maths, 53.99% of them were females (407,353 out of 754,545) were females while 46.01% (347,192 out of 754,545) were males. The females outperformed the males in the 2025 WASSCE Examination.

Also, the 2025 examination took a significant step as the council allowed candidates to choose between the traditional paper-and-pencil format and a computer-based test (CBT) option.

This marked a significant milestone for the council based on its move toward full digitisation by 2026.

Dangut further stated that the move placed the council as a foremost examining body to have conducted an achievement test using a computer-based format.

The 2025 WAEC result is out as announced by the council on August 4, 2025 and candidates can now access their results by visiting http://waecdirect.org.