WAEC: Only 38.3% of candidates pass 2025 WASSCE with credit in English, Maths

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has announced a significant decline in the performance of candidates who sat for the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

Speaking at a press briefing in Lagos on Monday, Amos Dangut, WAEC’s head of national office, said only 754,545 candidates — representing 38.32 percent of those who wrote the examination — obtained credit and above in a minimum of five subjects including English Language and Mathematics.

This marks a sharp drop of 33.8 percentage points from the 72.12 percent recorded in the 2024 edition of the examination.

According to Dangut, a total of 1,969,313 candidates sat for the exam, out of the 1,973,365 who registered from 23,554 recognised secondary schools across Nigeria.

He added that the exam was also conducted in schools operating the Nigerian curriculum in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, and Equatorial Guinea.

He said 1,718,090 candidates, representing 87.24 per cent, obtained credit and above in at least five subjects, with or without English Language and Mathematics.

Dangut suggested that the drop in performance may be linked to the council’s heightened efforts to curb examination malpractice.

Such efforts, he explained, include “the serialisation of objective test question papers in mathematics, English language, biology, and economics,” which made cheating more difficult.

“So far, the results of 1,517,517 candidates (77.06 percent) have been fully processed and released, while 451,796 candidates (22.94 percent) still have one or more subjects pending due to issues being resolved,” he added.

On gender distribution, Dangut said 976,787 of the candidates were male, while 992,526 were female, representing 49.60 percent and 50.40 percent respectively.

“Out of the total, 12,178 candidates with varying degrees of special needs were registered, including 112 visually impaired, 615 with hearing difficulties, 52 with mental health conditions, and 37 physically challenged candidates,” he said.