The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has announced a substantial upward adjustment in the number of candidates who secured credit passes in five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics, in the 2025 Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE).
According to the council, 1,239,884 candidates—representing 62.9% of the 1,969,313 students who took the examination—have now met the credit requirement, following a review of the results released earlier in the week. This marks a significant leap from the initially recorded 754,545 candidates, or 38.32%, who had met the benchmark for admission into tertiary institutions.
WAEC explained that the improvement was due to the correction of errors discovered in the marking of serialized objective questions, which had impacted the initial computation of results. Initially, only 38.32% of candidates were reported to have obtained credit passes in both English Language and Mathematics, two essential subjects for gaining entry into universities in Nigeria.
The earlier figures had sparked criticism from stakeholders, with many attributing the mass failure to procedural lapses during the examinations. Members of the Concerned Parents and Educators Network (CPE) particularly pointed to irregularities surrounding the English Language paper, alleging that some candidates had to write the exam late at night under poor conditions.
In a widely shared post on the CPE platform, Adegoke Bimpe Atoke expressed deep frustration over the situation: “Almighty WAEC has done it again. The pregnancy of a few months ago has finally given birth. Mass failure in Mathematics and English. 450-word essays written with a phone torchlight at 10:30 pm under the rain, with candidates swatting mosquitoes. How did we arrive here? Our systems need drastic, strategic, urgent reforms. I can’t even eat. I have lost my appetite. Which way is the way forward? If WAEC is not working and has lost relevance, can we have something else? A better mechanism that will address our context as a country.”
What you should know
WAEC’s review of the 2025 SSCE results has increased the percentage of candidates with the required five credits—including English and Mathematics—from 38.32% to 62.9%. The adjustment followed the discovery and correction of marking errors in serialized objective questions.
The initial mass failure prompted backlash from parents and educators, who called for reforms in the examination process and raised concerns over alleged poor conditions during the English Language exam.
