2025 WASSCE Results: President Mahama Orders Investigation Into Poor Performance
- President John Mahama has expressed concern over the decline in Ghana’s 2025 WASSCE results
- He made the remarks during the launch of the STEMBox initiative on Thursday, December 4, 2025
- The president has instructed the Education Ministry to review the report and find the root of the issue
President John Dramani Mahama has expressed concerns about the decline in the performance of the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
Speaking at the launch of the STEMBox initiative on Thursday, December 4, 2025, the president described the performance of the students as 'mind-boggling'.
Source: Facebook
He said the recently released WASSCE results have become a major concern for parents and the general public.
As a result of this, President Mahama disclosed that he has ordered the Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, to conduct a comprehensive review of the examiner's report to unravel the cause of the poor performance at this year's WASSCE by Ghanaian senior high school students.
According to a Citinewsroom report, he stated:
"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.
About the 2025 WASSCE in Ghana
The 2025 WASSCE started on August 5 with practical tests, while the written papers began on August 20 and ended on September 19.
The candidates sat 65 subjects in all, and each of them took an average of eight subjects.
A total of 461,640 candidates were registered for the 2025 WASSCE, comprising 207,381 male candidates and 254,259 female candidates.
The examination was conducted in about 701 examination centres across the country.
The results were finally released on November 29, 2025, by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).
In a press statement, the WAEC said it cancelled the entire results of 653 candidates who sat for the exam following confirmed cases of examination malpractice.
It added that thousands more were facing additional sanctions due to alleged malpractice.
The examination council also indicated that 6,295 candidates had their subject results cancelled for bringing foreign materials such as prepared notes, textbooks and printed sheets into exam centres.
WAEC explains reasons for poor WASSCE performance
The Head of Public Relations at WAEC, John Kapi, shared findings from the chief examiners on Core Mathematics and Social Studies.
According to him, the 2025 WASSCE saw a marked decline in core subjects, explaining that Mathematics recorded the steepest decline, with A1-C6 passes dropping from 305,132 in 2024 to 209,068 in 2025.
This represented a decline of more than 96,000 passes. With a pass rate of just 48.73%, more than half of the candidates failed to secure the grades required for tertiary education.
Speaking on Channel One TV, Kapi said the seven main weaknesses identified in Core Mathematics were:
- Difficulty representing mathematical information in diagrams
- Inability to solve global mathematics-related problems
- Poor construction of cumulative frequency tables
- Weaknesses in making deductions from real-life situations
- Challenges in solving simple interest applications
- Inability to translate word problems into mathematical expressions
- Difficulty interpreting results from cumulative frequency data
For Social Studies, Kapi said chief examiners also identified gaps in candidates’ understanding and analytical skills.
The key weaknesses in Social Studies were:
- Inability to write about government policies designed to improve citizens’ lives
- Failure to explain how costly funerals negatively affect national development
- Weak discussions on the forms of cooperation between Ghana and the United Nations agencies
Source: UGC
Boy celebrates aggregate 27 WASSCE results
Meanwhile, YEN.com,gh reported that a boy who attended Mankessim SHS became the envy of many after posting his 2025 WASSCE results slip online.
A viral video showed the boy, in the company of friends, checking his WASSCE results, with his exam results including C6s in three of the subjects he took.
Proofreading by Bruce Douglas, copy editor at YEN.com.gh.
Source: YEN.com.gh
