Are you looking for information on how to get your Waec certificate?

The Waec Certificate is a document given to candidates after attempting the WAEC SSCE or GCE examinations.

In this article, you will get detailed information about the WAEC certificate and how to collect your original WAEC certificate.

What is the WAEC certificate?

The West African Examination Council issues certificates to every candidate who registers and attempts any WAEC exam. The certificate contains the candidates’ name, date of birth, passport photograph, examination number and certificate number.

The WAEC certificate is usually requested by tertiary institutions during the admission process, by organizations for employment purposes, by schools abroad and political parties.

You must get your WAEC certificate after writing the WAEC GCE or WAEC SSCE exam.

Difference between a WAEC Certificate and WAEC Result

Below are some major differences between a WAEC certificate and a WAEC result.

The WAEC certificate has more details

The WAEC certificate contains more details about the candidate than the result. The certificate contains a passport photograph of the candidate, the candidate’s date of birth, the gender of the candidate and the certificate number. This information makes the WAEC certificate more preferred by schools and organizations.

The WAEC certificate is more accepted globally

Schools and institutions abroad prefer to request the WAEC certificate than the online result. They only ask for the online result if the certificate is not ready. With the speed at which WAEC is issuing certificates after the WAEC examinations, schools and organisations abroad may stop accepting the WAEC online result as a means of verifying a candidate’s academic qualification.

The certificate can serve two purposes

A WAEC certificate can be used for two different purposes; it can be used as a statement of result and it can be used as a certificate while the WAEC online result can only be used as a statement of result. Whenever it is mandatory to provide a certificate, the online result will not be accepted.

How to get the WAEC SSCE Certificate (Physical Copy)

After the WAEC SSCE exam, the certificate takes about 3 months to be ready. Secondary schools are supposed to go get the certificates after 3 months but some schools take more time. There have been cases where a school takes up to 1-2 years to get certificates of candidates.

Note that you might be charged a fee by your school to collect your certificate. The West African Examination Council does not regulate this price. Some schools allow you to negotiate the price for the certificate.

What do you do if your secondary school has closed down?

WAEC demands that before a school closes down, they should send back all certificates that have not been collected back to the council.

If your school has closed down, visit the WAEC office in the state where you wrote your exam to get your WAEC certificate.

There have been cases whereby the school did not send back the certificates before shutting down. In a scenario like this, you can ask about the whereabouts of the principal or other staff who can give information.

Perhaps you are not able to get the certificate, you will have to settle for the WAEC digital certificate.

How to get the WAEC GCE Certificate (Physical Copy)

Just like the SSCE certificates, you have to wait for 3-12 months for the WAEC GCE certificate to be ready and distributed to the collection points. Once it is ready, you have to visit a WAEC office in the state where you wrote the exam to collect your certificate.

If you wrote your exam in Lagos, there are three WAEC offices where you can collect your WAEC GCE certificate;

1. WAEC Zonal Office, Ogba, Ikeja
2. WAEC Branch Office, Ojo
3. WAEC Branch Office, Ikorodu

The WAEC office you will visit depends on where you wrote the exam.

While going to the WAEC office to get your WAEC Private (GCE) certificate, you need to take the following things along;

1. A passport photograph.
2. Means of Identification (NIN slip etc).
3. Online copy of your result.
4. Certificate fee.

How to get WAEC Certificate Online (Digital copy)

The commission recently introduced digital certificates which can be used in place of the WAEC physical certificates. The digital certificate is ready within a few weeks/months after the results have been released.

Here is how to get your WAEC digital certificate;

Step 1: Create an Account on the WAEC Portal

Visit the WAEC portal login page here. Click on “Create Account” if you do not already have an account.

Click “Certificate access (Candidate)” from the options.

Fill in your details, enter a password and sign up.

A one-time password (OTP) will be sent to your email address, copy this code and paste it into the space provided. Click on submit to complete your registration.

Step 2: Fill in your Exam Details

Select the year you wrote the exam from the list of options, and select the exam type, the date of birth is optional.

Type in your WAEC examination number in the “candidate number field”, and tick the “I have verified the information above” box, click on “Access Certificate” when you are done.

Step 3: Make Payment

After completing the steps above, you need to fund your WAEC wallet with 7,500 to access your WAEC digital certificate.

Click on card payment. You will be redirected to a Flutterwave checkout page. Select how you want to pay; you can pay with your debit card or via bank transfer.

Once the payment is completed, you will be redirected back to the WAEC portal with your walled funded with the specified amount.

Note that this money cannot be refunded if you are not able to access your WAEC certificate due to different reasons.

Step 4: Identity Verification

WAEC needs to make sure that they are interacting with the right person so they will verify your identity before you can retrieve the result.

The means of identification accepted on the portal are, virtual NIN, Bank verification number and international passport number.

We recommend that you verify your identity using the virtual NIN method. You can read our article on how to generate a virtual NIN. If this verification method does not work, then you can consider the other options.

Step 5: Access your Certificate

If the identity verification is successful, your result will appear in a PDF format. You can download it to your device.

Step 6: Upload your Certificate to a Cloud Storage (Optional)

You could decide to change your device or your device could get damaged. We always advise that important documents like certificates are uploaded to cloud storage like Google Drive or iCloud.

Upload your WAEC certificate to your most preferred cloud storage so that you can access it anytime you want.

Frequently Asked Questions on the WAEC Certificate

We hope this article has taught you how to get your original WAEC certificate. You can also read our article on how to get a secondary school transcript in Nigeria and how to apply for a Nigerian international passport.

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