There is a lot of misconception and misrepresentation of the truth. 2025 was the year we really took on a very big innovation, especially in the aspect of introducing the Computer-Based West African Senior School Certificate Examination (CB-WASSCE) into schools. The era of randomisation and serialisation of questions was introduced and, as we all know, whenever you are embarking on a new idea or process, no matter how you pilot or test it, you are likely to get what are commonly referred to as glitches. Meanwhile, we should not just look at it in isolation. There has been a corresponding drop in examination malpractice, which is a good aspect of the innovations that WAEC is now known for.
From 2024, there has been a drop in examination malpractice. Similarly, in 2025, we had a rate of 9.7 per cent in examination malpractice, whereas this year, the rate dropped to 8.59 per cent, a decline of 1.1 per cent. So, you find that when there is introduction of innovation for good, some people are easily beset by it, but the fact remains that there is a drop in the malpractice rate and a change in the pattern of assessment.This very year, I can confidently tell the whole world that the WAEC examination did not leak. The consequence of this was that the cyber rogue websites or cyber companies that engage in fraudulent activities or malpractice did not thrive, so they were angered. So, they are part of the aggrieved people fuelling this unnecessary controversy. There are records which indicate to us the impact of innovation, reluctance to change, and a drop in malpractice. You will agree with me that if there is no malpractice, no leakage, definitely performance will be affected.
In 2025, you had candidates who sat for English till almost 12 midnight in some centres. Also, this year in some centres, especially in Oyo, some parts of Osun and Kwara, candidates sat till late in the night for this exam. Can you tell us how much this technology that you are so proud of has helped in the conduct of WAEC examinations in Nigeria, when many candidates had to sit for your examination till late in the night? How will you explain this?
This is rather unfortunate and I want to say this emphatically that unless the stakeholders listen to us and adapt to change, we will continue to have issues which rather are surmountable. You will all recall that until the Federal Ministry of Education stepped in, schools were reluctant to come and register, such that registration of what should have been concluded in late 2024 was not concluded until April 2026. This is what you get when registrations are done very late. When we say, give us the entries in good time so that we will be able to prepare for all that needs to be planned for the conduct of the examination, stakeholders will not be forthcoming. When we finally close by our procedure and timing that will allow for a successful conduct of the examination, we closed the window and people went to the ministry saying, WAEC wants to disenfranchise our children and so on and so forth. So, delay in registration delays the preparation of the examination, printing and other logistics.
Secondly, the Federal Government had directed all examination bodies in the achievement test industry that all examinations must be conducted in the computer-based mode. So, all our arrangements were concluded to have computer-based testing deployed to schools that complied. It was also in late April that the government now formally informed us to carry out the examination in the mode that was carried out last year. We prepared for the schools that are ready and have the facilities and those schools indicated formally, not that it was forced down their throat. They indicated formally that they were ready and they had the facilities.
It was when examination actually commenced that WAEC had to now go to the press to start printing and that affected the logistics and conduct of examination. While all of this was going on, there was a particular day when teachers were demonstrating against the kidnap of their students and teachers. On that very day, all the supervisors, we had downed tools and before we could salvage the situation, it was late for some of the schools. Technology glitch does not occur in CB-WASSCE because the test environment is a secure one. It is certain that this kind of cutting and shutting off a candidate does not arise in the conduct of the CB-WASSCE. That is the clarification I would want to make here.
How many schools actually participated in WAEC this year and how many schools opted for CBT?
We have over 25,000 schools that enrolled for the examination and out of this number, the number that opted for the CB-WASSCE is in the region of about 200 schools.
Can you give us the percentage?
That is insignificant.
If we now have only 200 and we are claiming that we have opted for CBT, would it be appropriate to say WAEC is preparing for a CBT examination?
I told you that we had plans to do it on a larger scale until the formal directive from the Ministry came. That was why and how we found ourselves here. Otherwise, the plan is for virtually all the schools, particularly in urban and semi-urban centres, to do the exam using CB-WASSCE. It was only the rural schools which did not have access to technology that we would have conducted the pen-and-paper examination for. It was at the last minute that our plans changed based on the directive we received.
Will you say that the logistic challenges that you mentioned, the protest, among other challenges that you faced never affected the results of the students this year?
Yes, I will confirm to you emphatically that it did not affect the results.
Some schools observed that some of their students who did very well in UTME and other international exams such as IELTS, GRE and scored high grades, had some of the same candidates’ records in this year’s WAEC, something that they felt was below their competence. How do you justify that?
I am glad that I am talking to people who are in the education sector. Let me use myself as an example. When I was in Form 5, I took a look at Nigeria’s GCE question paper and I compared it with the London GCE question papers and I also compared it with Nigeria’s, the WAEC question paper. Believe me, the questions are on different standards. You will not expect the performance of candidates to be the same, too. Let me come to that one of the UTME that you mentioned. Did you know that UTME is a ranking test and not an achievement test? The conditions under which you sit UTME are different from that of WASSCE. It is an aptitude test, whereas WASSCE allows you to express what you have learnt in school. Let me also add this, that some people have a wrong impression that if you have an A1 in Further Mathematics, you should also have an A1 or even better grade than in General Mathematics. This is not true.
The logic and precepts of Further Mathematics is different from that of General Mathematics. I have a blood relation who also in his time, passed Further Maths very well, but he did not do well in Mathematics. Some people also think that if you are good in Physics, you should also be good in Mathematics. No, the two subjects are independent. They have different contents. More so, the IQ of the individuals in each of these subjects differs and their delivery and the marks obtained are bound to be different. Hence, I want to emphasise that you doing well in an international examination does not mean you will in WASSCE. If you must, you have to use our syllabus. You have to be guided by other resources like the Chief Examiner’s Report. When I was in secondary school, I bought for myself the WAEC examination syllabuses, which I used to assist myself. Today, I go to schools and I see that nobody has that.
We have even come up with an innovation to say, okay, let us give these candidates the opportunity to have a feel of what the CBT examination environment looks like. As a result, we provided a virtual examination environment for them to test themselves, as well as produced a hard copy of the past questions and answers for candidates to practise, but I heard people resisting and saying they do not need it. How can you sit for an examination without the right resources that will give you success in it?
Has the result of visually impaired candidates been released and what is the percentage?
With regard to results of candidates with special needs, I will say yes. However, we have a peculiar case in this instance. Usually, when we release results, we have those that have one issue or the other that we take time to manually resolve. It happens that the larger numbers come from this category and that is why we always make room for a form of regulated control assistance to be given to these candidates. I am sorry; I do not have the percentage record here with me because I did not expect the issue to come up. I can authentically inform you that we have released results of candidates with special needs.
There are so many private schools that have zero tolerance for examination malpractice that recorded poor results for the first time in their many years of participating in your examination. Don’t you think it is high time for a third-party review of WAEC results before they are released?
Let me quickly clarify here that I did not say that private schools failed because of exam malpractice. I never made such statement. I only said the road to malpractice has been closed against schools that are used to engaging in exam malpractice and that their performance will definitely be affected there. I did not direct the statement to either the public or private schools. However, we know that there are schools that thrive on malpractice and we are on the lookout for them. We are always monitoring them to hold them when we have evidence. So even when we see you or we do not see you and we have made the condition difficult for you not to perpetrate malpractice. I said there was no leakage, there was randomization, there was serialization. Why would they not fail when they are used to copying and committing other forms of exam malpractice? This goes across all the schools. It is not only in a few select school.
On how WAEC is being marked, our procedure is standard. We follow the best practices in assessment. In fact, let me even say that for this very last examination, we improved supervisors and examiners’ remuneration. Even before this year, WAEC remuneration, compared to others, if not the best, is one of the best. We did not stop there. This year, we ensured that anyone who would mark our script had his or her certificate verified to ensure that we have qualified people to work with. Apart From that, we also have checking activity to ensure that there is adequate transfer and proper computerisation. In any examination where you have humans marking it, there could be some level of subjectivity. The only instance where you can remove subjectivity is when you deploy the zombies or the computer to mark either through the E-marker, or most importantly, the AI, which we have not yet deployed.
This now calls for Nigerians to begin to pray and get prepared for objective methods because as long as assessment has the human aspect directly involved in it, there is going to be some force of subjectivity. For anyone who feels that the scores are not a true reflection of the performance, the right and the only thing, the best thing to do, is to apply and we will do the needful. We have been doing it over the years.
Let me also say that when you apply for review, is the scores could go up or it could go down. So, it is not a guarantee that if you apply, your candidate score will go up. It could go down depending on the assessment. Yes, we have a marking scheme, which is supposed to guide us. All papers are important. To some people, mathematics is more important, some go into the exam hall just to pass Music. For some, it is just to pass Food and Nutrition.
Is the review free? How much does it cost per script?
Definitely, there is a fee but I cannot quote the amount right now. Anywhere in the world, not only with WAEC, there is always a fee to pay if you apply for a review. It is not free of charge.
We would be glad to know the exact amount; you as the head should have it at your fingertips?
It is about N6,000 per script. Yes!
What happens after a school has paid for a review and it was discovered that the error is from WAEC, will they get a refund? And what will be the lot of students whose moving ahead in life is guided by the initial wrong markings?
Yes, of course. You see, WAEC does not operate in isolation. Our practice is the same as is done by other examination bodies worldwide. Serious money goes into the review exercise, but most times, many of the cases do not even warrant the stress. From the statistics I have, which I said will soon be given out, many of the schools are just agitating because they heard that there are marking issues, whereas there are really no issues.