The National Examinations Council (NECO) has released the 2025 May/June Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) results. The development marks an end to the long wait for the result, with concerns surrounding the deadline of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation admissions process.
In a statement made on Wednesday, the NECO Registrar, Professor Dantani Wushishi, explained that the examination recorded a pass rate of 60.26%. This means that 818,492 of the 1.3 million candidates who sat for the internal examinations scored at least a credit in five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics.
Notably, the 60.26% pass rate represents a small drop from the 60.55% recorded in 2024. For the last five years, NECO’s pass rate has rallied around 60% with 61.60% in 2023 and 60% in 2022.
In addition, the registrar explained that 84.26% secured five credits and above, irrespective of Mathematics and English. The figure saw a slight improvement compared to the 83.90% recorded a year ago.
The 2025 May/June (internal) SSCE, which was conducted between Monday, 16 June and Friday, 25 July 2025, recorded 1,358,339 candidates (680,292 males and 678,047 females) who sat for the examination. Although 1,367,210 candidates (685,514 males and 681,696 females) originally registered for the examinations.
In 2024, the internal examination saw a total of 1,367,736 candidates sit for the examination, with 702,112 males and 665,624 females.
The NECO boss revealed that the 2025 exam saw 1,622 candidates with special needs. Further breakdown shows 941 candidates with hearing impairment, 191 with visual impairment, 100 with albinism, 95 with autism, 110 with low vision, and 185 with Adermatoglyphia.
However, the figure is a decrease compared to the 2,267 special needs candidates recorded in 2024.
The 2025 internal NECO also marked the first time a pilot Computer-Based Testing (CBT) mode was introduced alongside the traditional Paper-Pencil Testing (PPT). The CBT mode was conducted in some centres in FCT Abuja, with such an option set out for the external exam set to hold in November/December.
Recall that alongside WAEC, the 2026 examination will run fully on CBT mode. While it will be made compulsory for all candidates, the exam will adopt the CBT mode for theory questions as against the hybrid method used this year.
Also Read: How to check your NECO 2025 result online
NECO 2025: Matters arising
According to the NECO boss, the 2025 internal examination recorded 3,878 cases of examination malpractices compared to the 10,094 in 2024, a reduction of 61.5%.
Records by NECO have shown a continuous significant drop in all forms of malpractices. In 2023, the examination recorded 12,030 cases of malpractice and 13,595 in 2022.
However, the release of the long-awaited result is coming at a time when there have been a series of outcries over the delay. While the examination concluded on July 15, the registrar explained that the marking exercise took place from Thursday 14 to Sunday 31, August, 2025.
In addition, he noted that the results were released exactly 54 days after the last paper was written. Though he failed to address recent concerns over the delay in the release of the results, the timing between August 31 and September 16 was believed to be the period for final consideration and review of the results.
At the bedrock of the delay in results is the timing of the admission process into various tertiary institutions nationwide. The result comes about 4 months after the 2025 UTME results and almost 7 weeks after the 2025 WAEC results.
Although NECO was held in July, there were expectations that the results would be released during the first week of September. This will enable candidates to still meet up with the admission process and upload their O-level results on the JAMB portal.
