CBT Fears Rise as WAEC Records Worst WASSCE Results in a Decade

Nigeria’s education system has come under intense scrutiny following the release of the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results, which revealed the country’s poorest performance in ten years.

According to the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), only 38.32% of the 1,969,313 candidates who took the exam obtained credit and above in at least five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics. This marks a drastic drop from 72.12% recorded in 2024, and the lowest pass rate since 2014, when only 31.28% achieved the same benchmark.

Dr. Amos Dangut, Head of WAEC’s National Office, attributed the decline to the introduction of stricter anti-examination malpractice measures. These include the serialisation of objective test papers in key subjects, which made it significantly harder for candidates to cheat.

“While these measures have improved the integrity of the exam, they also exposed students’ over-reliance on fraudulent practices and unverified online materials,” Dr. Dangut noted. He added that rogue websites and social media groups offering so-called ‘expo’ have continued to mislead candidates, often providing outdated or fake answers.

Additionally, WAEC introduced a hybrid Computer-Based Testing (CBT) model in subjects like English, Mathematics, Biology, and Economics. In this format, questions appeared on screen while answers were written in booklets. Candidates could choose between this hybrid format and the traditional pen-and-paper method. The 2025 exam is seen as a transitional phase ahead of the full adoption of CBT for WASSCE in 2026, as directed by the Federal Government.