JUST IN: WAEC Revises 2025 SSCE Results, English and Maths Pass Rate Jumps to Nearly 63%

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has revised its initial 2025 Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE) results following the discovery of errors in the grading process. The updated figures reveal that 1,239,884 candidates, or 62.9% of the 1,969,313 candidates who took the exam, have credit passes in five subjects or more, including English Language and Mathematics. This is a significant increase from the earlier reported figure of 754,545 candidates, representing just 38.32%.

At a press briefing in Lagos, Dr. Amos Dangut, Head of WAEC’s National Office, explained that the errors stemmed from a mix-up in the scoring of serialised objective papers, particularly in English Language Objective Tests (Paper 3). A wrong serialised code file was used during printing, causing the results for affected candidates to be incorrectly marked. Candidates who sat for the exam via computer-based testing were not impacted by this error.

WAEC apologized for the confusion and emotional distress caused to candidates, parents, and stakeholders. The Council has corrected the results, and candidates can now access their accurate scores on the official WAEC portal. The revised results show that 46.95% of male candidates and 53.05% of female candidates achieved credits in five or more subjects including English and Mathematics.

Dr. Dangut also noted a slight decline compared to last year’s results, where 72.12% of candidates met the credit pass threshold including English and Maths, marking a 9.16% drop in 2025. He urged candidates to recheck their results online to ensure accuracy.

The initial poor results had drawn criticism, especially from candidates who performed well in the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board’s (JAMB) Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) but were reported to have failed English Language in the SSCE. WAEC reassured the public that steps are being taken to prevent such errors in future exams.

While Dr. Dangut did not comment on disciplinary actions regarding those responsible for the mix-up, he emphasized WAEC’s commitment to transparency and accuracy moving forward.