The Head of Public Affairs at the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), John Kapi has attributed the decline in candidates performance in English Language in the 2026 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) partly to the widespread use of pidgin and a weakening reading culture among students.

He also cited poor grammar, weak expression and limited exposure to standard English as some of the factors affecting candidates’ performance.

He was speaking in a radio interview monitored by Graphic Online on Accra-based Joy FM on Monday (September 7, 2026), during a discussion on the 2026 WASSCE results.

Provisional results released by WAEC shows that 62.40 per cent of the 512,862 candidates who entered for the examination obtained grades A1 to C6 in English Language.

The figure was a decline from the 69 per cent recorded in the previous year.

According to Mr Kapi, the Chief Examiner’s report on English Language identified poor control of grammar, weak expression, errors in subject-verb concord and frequent spelling mistakes as recurring problems in candidates’ scripts.

He said many candidates also used contracted forms associated with social media messages.

Mr Kapi, nonetheless, said WAEC had not conducted any formal study to establish a link between social media use and the decline in performance.

“I’ve not done any study, and so if anybody asks me to produce any figures or any evidence, I may not be able to provide that, but what we’ve seen in the scripts of the candidates, you can simply relate to the kind of language that we use in social media,” he said.

Mr Kapi said limited exposure to standard English in candidates’ daily lives was another factor affecting their command of the language.

He said his experience inspecting examination centres across the country had exposed him to groups of candidates who communicated mainly in pidgin.

“Sometimes you find a group of students, and none among them is speaking standard English,” he said.

He said regular use of a language was necessary for improving proficiency.

Mr Kapi also attributed the decline in performance to a weakening reading culture among candidates.

He said reading helped students to develop their vocabulary and improve sentence construction.

He suggested that candidates could be required to write short summaries of books or other texts they had read as a way of assessing and encouraging reading habits.

Mr Kapi said the 2026 Chief Examiner’s report also noted that many candidates struggled to analyse prescribed texts properly.

He said the issue had not featured in the previous year’s report.

He called for improved training for English Language teachers, particularly in grammar.

“The training of teachers is very, very important, especially in the teaching of grammar,” he said.

Mr Kapi said the teaching of grammar should go beyond the rote learning of definitions at the basic level, which were not always revisited as pupils progressed to higher levels.