The West African Examinations Council is facing growing scrutiny over the integrity of its newly released 2026 West African Senior School Certificate Examination results for school candidates, as school administrators and education advocates allege grading anomalies and technical glitches linked to the expanded Computer-Based Testing rollout.

The concerns follow complaints from school administrators and education advocates who claim that some high-performing students received lower grades than expected, based on their academic records and performance in other standardised assessments.

Speaking in an interview with our correspondent on Monday, the Director of Impact House Model Schools, Mowe, Ogun State, Sam Abdulazeez, said the school had observed a decline in its students’ performance in the 2025 and 2026 WASSCE despite retaining its teaching staff, improving its facilities and intensifying examination preparations.

He said the school had been presenting candidates for WASSCE since 2017 and had recorded strong performances, particularly in Mathematics and English Language.

Abdulazeez recalled that in 2024, all 45 candidates presented by the school for Mathematics obtained A1.

However, he said the situation changed in subsequent years following the introduction of serialisation and CBT.

“This year, out of the 69 children we presented for JAMB, over 30 of them had more than 300 in JAMB. And you know that JAMB is completely CBT,” Abdulazeez said.

He added that none of the school’s candidates scored below 200 in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, attributing the performance to extensive preparations.

According to him, the school conducted 22 mock-UTME examinations before the actual examination, with students regularly using computers to simulate the examination environment.

He said the disparity became more noticeable when the WASSCE results were released.

Abdulazeez said the school recorded only about three or four A1 grades in Mathematics among its 69 candidates, despite previously recording significantly stronger results.

“In Mathematics, we had children who had up to 98 in Mathematics during UTME. Now, the As we had in Mathematics, maybe about three or four out of 69. This is a school that we usually have almost everybody having A1 in Math.”

He also expressed concern over the English Language results, noting that some candidates who performed strongly in the UTME did not obtain the grades the school expected in WASSCE.

“We only had B and maybe a few Cs. Out of the 69, I think we have three credits, and all others are B2, B3,” he said.

The school director said the institution had maintained a strong teaching workforce, noting that it did not employ teachers with qualifications below a second-class upper degree.

He also disclosed that the school invested heavily in infrastructure after WAEC announced plans to introduce computer-based examinations.

However, Abdulazeez said the school encountered technical difficulties during a mock examination conducted by WAEC officials shortly before the examination.

“They did it the first day; the systems could not connect to their own server. They came the second day; they did it, but it was not successful,” he said.

He said the school subsequently contacted WAEC officials in Ogun State and Lagos, explaining that it could not risk allowing its candidates to sit the examination through a system it considered unreliable.

According to him, WAEC eventually approved the school to conduct a paper examination, despite the school having already been listed on the CBT platform.

Abdulazeez said a similar issue had occurred with the school’s 2025 WASSCE results.

“Last year, we had this same problem with WAEC. Some of my children who were expecting A1, they dropped to B. Those who were expecting B dropped to C,” he said.

He claimed that the school later noticed changes in the grades displayed on the result portal.

“When last year’s result was released, I had already gone to publish the result, only for some people to call me that it’s like they have made some changes.

“When we checked the result back again, we saw that those who they gave B had moved to A1. Those who they gave C moved to B last year.”

Abdulazeez said the experience made him initially wait before publishing the 2026 results, hoping that similar adjustments might occur.

He eventually published the results after no adjustment was observed.

He also raised concerns over the possible impact of different versions of examination papers, commonly referred to as serialisation.

“For me, because I did not do CBT in our school, I don’t know how they go about their serialisation. I think it has to be, because we saw it in the subjects that have serialisation, like Mathematics, like English, Economics, and Biology,” he said.

He said the school did not experience similar concerns in subjects where serialisation was not a major factor, adding that students performed better in those subjects.

Abdulazeez consequently joined stakeholders calling for an independent review of the 2026 WASSCE results.

“If the schools and the examining bodies cannot conduct the exam properly, it should not affect these children and their future,” he said.

He also rejected suggestions that declining performance could simply be attributed to students’ lack of preparation following the introduction of CBT.

“Some people were saying that children don’t read again; it’s because WAEC has gone to CBT, that’s why children are failing. Sir, JAMB had been doing CBT for a long time now,” he said.

He added, “When you do all that, and you now discover that the result does not justify the effort, then it calls for concern.”

Another school administrator, who asked not to be named, said several students who recorded high scores in the recent UTME and had previously passed the General Certificate Examination were awarded D7, E8 and F9 grades in core subjects in the 2026 WASSCE.

“Students with top scores in JAMB and verified track records are suddenly receiving D7s, E8s, and F9s in WAEC,” the administrator said.

He added that two affected students who had already secured admission to the University of Ibadan were recorded as failing Mathematics and English Language in the newly released WAEC results.

An educationist, Fola Adekeye, urged WAEC to ensure that its examination processes and results passed the test of integrity.

He said examination bodies should not wait for public outcry before investigating complaints about their results, warning that such a practice could undermine public confidence in the examination system.

“Those who are managing destinies — exams, exams are destiny issues. Children want to make their results; they want to be doctors, they want to be lawyers, they want to be astronauts. Those managing those checkpoints should do better.

“The public outcry shouldn’t become the determinant of most of these things. They should do the right thing.”

Adekeye said the controversy that followed the release of the 2025 UTME results by JAMB showed the need for examination bodies to proactively identify and resolve technical or procedural problems.

He disclosed that some of the students in his school who had previously performed strongly were among those whose WAEC results generated concerns.

“Our head boy had 369, was the third in the federation. Our head girl and another student did so well in JAMB, but suddenly WAEC came out, and only the head boy is having five As and Bs.”

Adekeye, however, cautioned against making unsubstantiated allegations against WAEC, stressing that his concern was the integrity and credibility of the examination process.

“I don’t question exam bodies. I always plead that they should please ensure that what they do will pass the test of integrity,” he said.

He called on WAEC to upgrade its facilities where necessary and properly communicate technological and methodological changes in examination administration.

“If their facilities are outdated and they need to upgrade them, please let them upgrade them,” he said.

He also urged the examination council to adequately explain any changes to its curriculum or assessment methods before implementation.

“If they are coming out with a new curriculum, let them do it. If they are shifting from one particular method of questioning to a particular method of questioning, let them make it clear so that students will be on the same page with all other stakeholders,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Initiative for School Excellence and Education Foundation, through its solicitors, Zuriel Law Practice, has threatened to institute legal proceedings against WAEC over alleged irregularities in the conduct and processing of the 2026 Computer-Based WASSCE.

The organisation said it had received complaints from candidates alleging discrepancies in the recording and processing of their responses.

In a formal demand addressed to WAEC, the lawyers requested the immediate preservation of original electronic records, including candidate response databases, system audit trails, server logs and scoring records.

The organisation also demanded disclosure of the technical standards, regulations and manuals governing the 2026 CBE and called for a mechanism through which affected candidates could inspect their examination records, including the questions presented, recorded responses and scoring method.

It further proposed an independent audit of the CBE platform by educational and information technology experts.

The lawyers gave WAEC 14 days from receipt of the letter to confirm preservation of the records and establish the requested review procedures.

Failure to engage within the stipulated period, the lawyers warned, would lead to court proceedings seeking orders for disclosure, verification and human review of affected results.

The founder of the ISEE, Alex Onyia, also called for greater transparency in WAEC’s grading process, particularly amid allegations of question leakage in some paper-based examination centres.

He questioned whether candidates who sat examinations under different conditions were standardised as one population.

“When WAEC carried out its standardisation, were candidates from fundamentally different examination conditions treated as one population?” he asked.

Onyia argued that if leaked questions had significantly inflated the scores of some candidates, the resulting distribution could potentially affect the thresholds used to award grades.

He called on WAEC to disclose raw-score distributions, grade thresholds for major subjects and details of how candidates from different examination modes were standardised.

“Show us the data,” Onyia demanded, asking WAEC to disclose the thresholds that produced A1, B2, B3, C4, C5 and C6 in major subjects.

He also called for clarification of the review mechanism for candidates who challenge their results and urged the authorities to investigate allegations of internal management problems within WAEC Nigeria.

“This is not an attack on WAEC. It is a demand for accountability,” he said.

Onyia urged the Federal Ministry of Education and the National Assembly to invite the leadership of WAEC Nigeria to explain the methodology used in processing the 2026 results.

However, The PUNCH reported on Thursday that WAEC defended the integrity of the 2026 WASSCE results amid the criticisms.

The examination body said it had observed comments, particularly from content creators and social media commentators, questioning the accuracy and credibility of the results.

WAEC’s Head of Public Affairs, Moyosola Adesina, said the results were produced through rigorous and quality-assured processes that had guided the council’s examinations over the years.

The council said the 2026 WASSCE for School Candidates was conducted in line with its established standard operating procedures and relevant educational policies, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education.

The examination body also urged candidates, parents, schools and members of the public to exercise caution over unverified claims concerning the results.

WAEC explained that every candidate’s script passed through a multi-tiered system of marking, moderation and auditing based on standardised marking schemes and supervised by vetted subject experts.

The council advised members of the public with concerns about their results to contact it directly through its offices and verified communication platforms rather than relying on social media speculation.

The Nigerian examination bodies have come under scrutiny in recent years over issues of glitches in released results.

In 2025, the former JAMB Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, broke down in tears as he apologised for the errors in the 2025 UTME.

Oloyede, at the start of a press briefing in Abuja, had acknowledged “one or two errors” made during the exam. (The PUNCH)

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