President John Dramani Mahama has directed the Minister of Education to conduct an immediate and comprehensive investigation into the alarming decline in performance recorded in the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
The President described the sharp drop in results as “mind-boggling” and a matter of grave concern to the government, parents, and the entire nation.
Speaking at the launch of the STEMBox initiative for primary schools on Wednesday, December 4, 2025, President Mahama said he had instructed the Education Ministry to thoroughly analyse the chief examiners’ report to establish what went “disastrously wrong.”
“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,” he said.
“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,” the President added.
The directive follows the release of the 2025 WASSCE results by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), which revealed significant declines, especially in Core Mathematics and Social Studies.
WAEC’s Head of Public Relations, John Kapi, disclosed that passes (A1–C6) in Core Mathematics plummeted from 305,132 in 2024 to 209,068 in 2025 — a drop of over 96,000 candidates. The overall national pass rate stood at just 48.73%, meaning more than half of the candidates failed to obtain the grades required for tertiary admission.
Chief examiners blamed the poor showing on persistent candidate weaknesses rather than the quality or difficulty of the questions.