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How to Get Your Original WAEC Certificate (Digital or Physical)

A. A. Badmus November 15, 2023

0 2,571 4 minutes read

Obtaining your original WAEC certificate is important after completing the WAEC SSCE or GCE examinations. This document, issued by the West African Examination Council (WAEC), includes crucial details like the candidate’s name, date of birth, photograph, exam and certificate numbers. It is an important document that is usually requested by tertiary institutions, employers, foreign schools, and various organizations. In this article, we will take you through the process of getting your WAEC certificate both offline (physical) and online (digital).

Table of Contents

Differences between a WAEC Certificate and WAEC Result

The WAEC result (statement of result) that candidates print from WAEC website after getting result checker only contains the results and exam number and is not tenable for verification purposes but the WAEC certificate is more comprehensive, containing additional details such as the candidate’s photograph and date of birth, making it the preferred choice for many institutions or organizations globally. Unlike the online result, the certificate serves both as a statement of result and an official certificate, crucial in certain scenarios where a certificate is specifically required.

How to get the WASSCE Certificate (Physical Copy)

After your WASSCE May/June exam, the certificate takes about 3 months to be ready. Although some schools may take up to 1 year before getting the certificate ready for their students.

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You will be charged a fee by your school to collect your certificate and this fee ranges from 20,000 naira and above depending on your school. The West African Examination Council does not regulate this price.

What if My Secondary School Has Closed Down?

If your secondary school has closed down, you will need to visit the WAEC office in the state where you took the exam to retrieve your certificate. In cases where the school hasn’t returned certificates before closing down, seeking information from relevant staff of the school or settling for the digital certificate might be necessary.

How to get the WAEC GCE Certificate (Physical Copy)

Just like the WASSCE May/June certificates, you have to wait for 3-12 months for the WAEC GCE (Nov/Dec) 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;

WAEC Zonal Office, Ogba, Ikeja
WAEC Branch Office, Ojo
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;

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

How to get WAEC Certificate Online (Digital copy)

The commission recently introduced digital certificates in 2023 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 and can serve the same purpose as the physical one.

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 Online

After completing the steps above, you need to fund your WAEC wallet with 7,500 (excluding charges) 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.
You will then need to provide your residence address and years of stay

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

Step 4: Verify Your Identity

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 (16 digits), Bank verification number, or international passport number.

We recommend that you verify your identity using the BVN method as it is the fastest. If that does not work, you can try any of the two other options.

Step 5: Access and Download your Certificate in PDF

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

Don’t Lose Your WAEC Certificate

To prevent issues of not being able to access your WAEC Certificate when you change your phone, you can upload the PDF to your Google Drive or iCloud storage.

Important Things to Note on WAEC Certificate

The physical WAEC certificate cannot be replaced if lost or damaged, but a digital copy can be obtained online by following the process we explained here.
WAEC SSCE certificates are usually collected from the school of examination, while GCE certificates can be collected from designated WAEC offices. However, both can now be gotten online and saved as PDF.
There is no expiry date for a WAEC certificate; it can be used indefinitely.
WAEC does not issue certificates twice; however, digital copies or direct dispatch of copies can be arranged.
Your institution can also verify your WAEC Result via the Digital WAEC Certificate option.

We trust this guide provides a comprehensive insight into obtaining your original WAEC certificate.