The West African Examination Council (WAEC) has released the registration guidelines for the 2026 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for school candidates.
In a statement dated August 14, 2025 and addressed to school principals, the examination body stated that offline registration of candidates will commence on Tuesday, September 16 and end on Friday, November 21, 2025.
Online registration will start on Monday, September 22, 2025, and close on Friday, December 12, 2025.
It added that the Continuous Assessment Scores (CASS) 1 & 2 upload will start on Tuesday, August 19, and run through Friday, October 31, 2025.
The statement partly reads, “This is to inform you that the entries for WASSCE for School Candidates, 2025 have been floated. The registration of candidates for the examination will include the following stages: The upload of Continuous Assessment Scores (CASS) 1 & 2 will commence on Tuesday, 19th August and end on Friday, 31st October, 2025; offline registration of candidates will commence on Tuesday, 16th September and end on Friday, 21 November, 2025.”
“Online registration of candidates will commence on Monday, 22nd September and end on Friday, 12th December, 2025.”
Examination to be a hybrid format
The statement signed by the WAEC Zonal Coordinator, L.M. Odoh, further reiterated that the 2026 WASSCE will be a hybrid exam that includes both pen and paper and computer-based formats.
The release sighted by Techpression stated, “Please note that the conduct of WASSCE for School Candidates, 2026 will be a combination of hybrid computer-based (CB-WASSCE) and pen-and-paper formats.”
Examination to be centre-based
Additionally, it stated that the exam, like the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), will now be centre-based rather than school-based.
It emphasised, “We also reiterate that CB-WASSCE for School Candidates, 2026 will be centre-based as against school-based. The examination will be conducted in pooled centres.”
Principals, examination registration officers to be invited for training
Therefore, the leading examination body promised to invite principals and examination registration officers to a brief cum training session to explain the new system and expectations.
“The School Principals and the Registration Officers will soon be invited for a briefing/training sessions on the procedures for error-free registration exercise and practical use of Candidates’ Identity Verification, Attendance, Malpractice and Post Examination Management System-CIVAMPEMS,” it added.
Release of 2025 WASSCE results
Techpression recently reported that following the discovery of grading inconsistencies that substantially impacted candidates’ performance statistics, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC Nigeria) released the reviewed results for the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination for school candidates.
The Head of WAEC Nigeria, Dr. Amos Dangut, acknowledged a significant mistake in marking serialised papers that misrepresented candidates’ performance during a press briefing at the council’s national office in Yaba, Lagos.
The examination body noted that 1,763,470 candidates (89.55 per cent) have fully processed their results, while 205,916 (10.45 per cent) candidates still have one or more subjects pending because of technical difficulties.
Technical issues that affected the 2025 WASSCE results
Techpression had earlier reported that the 2025 WASSCE results were withdrawn for review by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) in response to a high volume of complaints regarding widespread failure in key subjects.
WAEC stated that an internal audit found technical issues that impacted math, English, biology, and economics scores.
Following reports of result errors, the Council attributed the problem to a new anti-malpractice system to enhance exam integrity.
This led the Council to close the result-checking portal, consequently, temporarily.
It clarified that the mistake resulted from a novel technique, paper serialisation, which rearranges exam questions to deter cheating.