The reopening of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) for candidates to recheck their results for the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) has caused a stir on social media.
TheNewsGuru.com(TNG) reports that the examination body apologised again for a technical error that led to initial inaccuracies in the results, saying, “Once again, we sincerely apologize for the mishap and appreciate your understanding and support.”
According to WAEC, the errors in this year’s WASSCE results had been corrected, leading to a jump in the number of candidates achieving credit passes in at least five subjects including English and Maths.
According to WAEC’s National Office Head Dr. Amos Dangut, the initial results showed that 754,545 candidates (38.32%) had credits in five subjects including English and Maths.
After correcting the grading discrepancies tied to a wrongly used serialized code file in English Language Objective Tests, the pass rate rose to 62.9% (1,239,884 candidates).
Reacting, Nigerians took to social media to bemoan technical failures and alleged lack of transparency in the country’s education system.
@kamanya_thinks criticized WAEC’s initial handling of the result that led to massive drop in pass rates and expressed concern over the issue which would have gone unnoticed if not for the outcry from Nigerians.
“I called it. A drop from a 72.12% pass rate to 38.32% is too significant to be explained by just “our fight against malpractice” alone. There were abnormal variables at play, and it is particularly disturbing that WAEC couldn’t even think about that, especially after the whole shameful JAMB dance.
“A 33.8% drop and it signaled no red flag? That’s the scandal! As one who scaled UTME and WASSCE excellently without exam malpractice, I’ll forever say that the intention to curb malpractice is great, but it must be backed by intelligence. Else, the road to our educational hell will be paved with such malformed “good” intentions. You can’t advise kids for years to cross-check their work but fail to do the same yourself.
“Hopefully, it doesn’t repeat itself. Can they run pilot, simulated and controlled tests before implementing these in high stakes exams? Even the 62.9% might not even be perfect but at least, it is better, representatively,” he posted on X.
Also, @nnaemekairoegbu highlighted systemic problems in Nigeria’s education sector, pointing out the need for Nigerians to stand up for quality education without compromise.
“There is a serious rot in the Nigerian system. Anyone can just wake up and say there is a glitch. INEC did it. JAMB did it. Anyone can just wake up and do it. The paper leaked. WAEC printed a new one. There was mass failure. But they are scared they are losing credibility. The earlier we start standing for quality education without compromise, then a nation is born. I can’t lie to myself. I am Nigeria and Nigeria is me. If we don’t fix it, no one will!!!”
@BOTAD01 on his part, stressed the importance of public scrutiny in correcting errors, adding that the collective condemnation by Nigerians led to WAEC correcting the error.
“If Nigerians kept quiet about the WAEC mass failure in the English language, nothing would be done to correct that error. The ‘glitch’ won’t be mentioned in the conversation. This is to show that whatever we condemn collectively as a society, will be corrected. Only Nigerians will make Nigeria work,” he said.