The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) is under intense public scrutiny following the abrupt shutdown of its online result-checking portal, compounding growing dissatisfaction over the poor performance in the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
On Wednesday evening, WAEC took to its official X handle, @waecnigeria, to announce that its result-checking platform, waecdirect.org, had been temporarily disabled due to “technical issues.” The announcement drew swift and widespread criticism, as candidates and parents—already reeling from the disappointing examination results—vented their frustrations online.
“WAEC hereby informs the general public that the result checker portal @waecdirect.org is temporarily shut down due to technical issues,” the council posted.
“However, the Council is working assiduously to ensure that candidates are able to access their results in the next 24 hours. We apologise for any inconvenience this might have caused you.”
The portal outage follows WAEC’s Monday release of the 2025 WASSCE results, which revealed that only 38.32% of the 1,969,313 candidates secured credit passes in five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics—the worst performance in over a decade.
Social media has since become a hotbed for complaints, with many users expressing disbelief and anger over the English Language results in particular. Some candidates shared screenshots showing strong grades in other subjects but unexpected failures in English, prompting calls for a comprehensive review of the grading process.
The controversy has also reignited debate over the conduct of this year’s English Language paper, which was delayed in many centres and reportedly held late into the night on May 28. Critics argue that poor logistics and exam fatigue may have contributed to the subpar outcomes.
Education stakeholders have urged WAEC to urgently address both the technical and procedural lapses that have cast a shadow over the integrity of this year’s examination.
So far, WAEC has promised that access to results will be restored within 24 hours but has yet to respond directly to mounting allegations of mismanagement or release any plan for a review of the disputed English Language results.
