Mahama orders probe into poor 2025 WASSCE results

President John Dramani Mahama has expressed deep concern over the significant decline in performance in the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), describing the development as “mind-boggling.”

Speaking at the unveiling of the STEMBox initiative for primary schools, the President said the poor results have become a major worry for the government, parents, and the general public.

Mahama disclosed that he has instructed the Minister of Education to undertake a comprehensive review of the examiners’ report to determine the underlying causes of the sharp drop in student performance.

“It has become an issue of great concern to the government, parents, and the public at large. I was speaking with the minister, and I have asked them to do an analysis of the examiners’ report and try and decipher what could have gone so disastrously wrong.

“It is mind-boggling that with the same teachers, the same factors in play just from one batch to another, one batch does so disastrously,” President Mahama stated.

His comments follow revelations by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) that candidates performed poorly in key subjects, particularly Core Mathematics and Social Studies.

According to WAEC’s Head of Public Relations, John Kapi, Core Mathematics recorded the steepest decline, with A1–C6 passes dropping from 305,132 in 2024 to 209,068 in 2025—a reduction of more than 96,000 passes. The overall pass rate fell to 48.73%, leaving more than half of the candidates unable to secure grades required for tertiary education.

Chief examiners attributed the poor performance not to the quality of the examination but to candidate weaknesses.

They highlighted difficulties in areas such as representing mathematical information in diagrams, solving real-life problems, constructing cumulative frequency tables, and interpreting data. In Social Studies, candidates struggled to explain government policies, analyze the impact of costly funerals on national development, and discuss Ghana’s cooperation with United Nations agencies.

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