The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has reversed its earlier Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) results, revealing that 62.9% of candidates passed English and Mathematics—far higher than the 38.3% initially reported.
The correction means 485,339 more candidates actually passed but were wrongly marked as having failed due to a grading error.
Announcing the change at a press briefing in Lagos on Friday, WAEC’s Head of National Office, Dr. Amos Dangut, blamed the mix-up on a wrongly serialised code file used in grading the English Language Objective Paper for schools under the paper-based marking system.
“We sincerely apologise for this embarrassing error and the emotional and mental distress it has caused students and their families,” Dangut said.
The updated Figures show Total passes (including English & Maths) to 1,239,884, Gender breakdown: 582,065 male (46.95%), 657,819 female (53.05%), Year-on-year: Still below the 72.12% pass rate recorded in 2024, WAEC stressed that candidates who sat for the computer-based version of the exam were unaffected. The council urged all affected students to recheck their results online within the next 12 hours.
Public outrage had trailed the earlier results, with many parents and schools questioning how strong performers had failed core subjects. WAEC has not disclosed whether any disciplinary measures will be taken over the error.
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