Mass Failure Hits 2025 WASSCE as Performance Drops by 33.8%

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has released the results of the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for school candidates, revealing a troubling 33.8% drop in overall performance compared to the previous year.

According to WAEC, only 754,545 candidates, representing 38.32% of the 1,969,313 candidates who sat for the examination, obtained at least five credit passes including English Language and Mathematics — the minimum requirement for admission into most tertiary institutions.

This marks a steep decline from the 72.12% pass rate recorded in 2024.

Announcing the results at WAEC’s national office in Lagos, the Head of Nigeria National Office, Dr. Amos Dangut, attributed the drastic fall in performance to a series of anti-malpractice reforms introduced by the Council. Notably, the 2025 examination featured the serialization of objective test papers in key subjects such as Mathematics, English Language, Economics, and Biology — a system that made cheating more difficult and exposed academic weaknesses in some candidates.

“While we have recorded a decrease in reported cases of malpractice, the measures implemented to ensure the integrity of the examination may have contributed to the lower performance levels,” Dangut stated.

WAEC disclosed that 192,089 results, representing 9.75%, are currently withheld due to reported cases of malpractice. This is a slight improvement compared to the 11.92% of results withheld in 2024.

Additionally, the Council noted that 451,796 candidates — roughly 22.94% — still have one or more of their subject results pending due to errors and inconsistencies encountered during the marking and processing phases.

Despite the setback, 87.24% of all candidates secured at least five credits in any five subjects, though not necessarily including English and Mathematics.

A breakdown of the data showed that of the total candidates, 976,787 were male (49.6%) and **992,526 were female.