The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has revealed detailed reasons behind the sharp decline in performance in the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), particularly in Core Mathematics and Social Studies. 

The explanations, provided by the Head of Public Relations, John Kapi, highlight critical weaknesses observed by chief examiners after this year’s assessment.

Mr Kapi’s disclosures follow a worrying downturn in national performance and a rise in examination irregularities. Core Mathematics recorded the steepest fall in grades, with A1 to C6 passes dropping from 305,132 in 2024 to 209,068 in 2025, a deficit of over 96,000 passes. With only 48.73 per cent securing the required grades, more than half of the candidates were unable to meet the minimum benchmark for tertiary admission.

Speaking on Channel One TV’s The Point of View with Bernard Avle on Monday, December 1, Mr Kapi stressed that the poor outcomes were not due to an unusually difficult paper. According to the chief examiners, the 2025 Core Mathematics questions were comparable in standard to the previous year. “The challenge came from the candidates’ own weaknesses, not the quality of the paper,” he explained.

He outlined seven major weaknesses that contributed to the mass failure in Core Mathematics. Candidates struggled to represent mathematical information in diagrams and were unable to solve global mathematics-related problems. Many had difficulty constructing cumulative frequency tables and making deductions from real-life scenarios. Others could not solve basic simple interest questions, translate word problems into mathematical expressions, or interpret cumulative frequency data when presented.