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.”
Credit: Punchng
