WAEC raises 2025 WASSCE credit pass rate to 62.96% after result review
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has increased the 2025 West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) credit pass rate to 62.96 percent from 38.32 percent, following a review of released results.
WAEC had earlier announced that only 754,545 of the 1,969,313 candidates who sat the exam across 23,554 schools obtained at least five credits, including English Language and Mathematics — a performance it said marked a sharp decline from 2024.
The announcement sparked public outrage over the mass failure. In a follow-up statement, WAEC said it had identified technical issues that compromised the grading of results.
According to the council, the problem affected the grading of “serialised papers”, a recent innovation. It explained that a serialised code file was wrongly applied in printing the English Language Objective Tests (Paper 3), leading to the use of incorrect marking keys.
WAEC said schools that took the exam through the computer-based mode were not affected.
“The observable decline in the performance of candidates earlier announced was partly traceable to this absurd situation,” WAEC said.
“The council sincerely apologises for this imbroglio and deeply regrets the emotional and mental dismay it might have caused the affected candidates and all stakeholders.”
Following the review, WAEC said 1,239,884 candidates — representing 62.96 percent — obtained credits and above in at least five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics.
