The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has admitted to a significant error in its recent Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) results, announcing that the true pass rate for English and Mathematics is 62.9 per cent, not the 38.3 per cent it originally reported. This correction means an additional 485,339 candidates passed the exams but were initially marked as having failed.

At a press briefing in Lagos on Friday, Dr. Amos Dangut, the Head of WAEC’s National Office, explained that the mistake was due to a wrong serialised code file used during the grading of the English Language Objective Paper. He apologised for the “embarrassing” error and the “emotional and mental distress” it caused students and their families.

The corrected figures reveal that 1,239,884 of the nearly 2 million candidates who took the exam met the pass mark for five credits, including English and Mathematics.

Key Details from the Revised Results:

Gender Breakdown: Of those who passed, 582,065 were male (46.95%) and 657,819 were female (53.05%).
Performance vs. Last Year: While the new pass rate is a major improvement from the initial announcement, it is still a decline from the 72.12 per cent recorded in 2024.
How the Error Happened: The mistake affected only schools using the paper-based marking system. Those who took the computer-based exam were unaffected.
The initial results had led to widespread outrage, with many questioning how high-achieving students could have failed core subjects. Dr. Dangut urged all affected candidates to recheck their results on the WAEC website, promising that the updated information would be available within 12 hours. WAEC did not mention any specific disciplinary actions against those responsible for the error.