The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has announced a substantial increase in the number of candidates who secured credit passes in five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics, in the 2025 Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE).
According to the examination body, 1,239,884 candidates, representing 62.9% of the 1,969,313 candidates who sat for the examination, now have the required credits, following a review of the results released earlier in the week.
The new figure marks a sharp improvement from the initial 754,545 candidates, or 38.32%, earlier recorded as meeting the benchmark for admission into tertiary institutions.
WAEC attributed the change to the correction of errors detected in the marking of serialized objective questions, which had affected the original computation of results.
Recall that only 38.32% passed English language and Mathematics at the credit level. Both papers are key to securing university admission in the country.
Commentators on the development, especially parents, blamed the mass failure on lapses on the part of the West African Examinations Council, WAEC, regarding the time the English Language exam was written by the candidates.
Those on the platform of Concerned Parents and Educators Network, CPE, called for the cancellation of the English Language paper and an inquest into why some candidates wrote the paper at night.
In a post on the CPE platform by Adegoke Bimpe Atoke, she wrote: “Almighty WAEC has done it again. The pregnancy of a few months ago has finally given birth. Mass failure in Mathematics and English. 450-word essays written with a phone torchlight at 10:30 pm under the rain, with candidates swatting mosquitoes. How did we arrive here?
‘’Our systems need drastic, strategic, urgent reforms. I can’t even eat. I have lost my appetite. Which way is the way forward? If WAEC is not working and has lost relevance, can we have something else? A better mechanism that will address our context as a country.
