The 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results have delivered a sobering verdict on Ghana’s education system. Beyond the alarming statistics, the real indictment lies in the Chief Examiner’s Report, which exposes the depth of the intellectual crisis confronting our students. What has emerged is not merely poor performance it is the revelation of a generation struggling to think, analyse, and apply even the most basic mathematical concepts.
WAEC’s data show that the failure rate in Core Mathematics has skyrocketed. The percentage of candidates who obtained an outright F9 leapt from 6.10% in 2024 to a staggering 26.77% in 2025. More than half of all candidates failed to secure a credit pass, causing the overall A1–C6 rate to fall from 66.86% to 48.73%. This collapse is unprecedented in recent history, and the Chief Examiner’s findings provide the clearest explanation.
The report details severe weaknesses in cognitive and analytical skills. Many students could not represent mathematical information in diagrams, interpret data, construct cumulative frequency tables or draw deductions from information.
They struggled to translate everyday situations into mathematical expressions, solve simple interest problems, or interpret graphs and tables. These are not problems of memory but of comprehension. Students have memorised formulas and past questions but cannot apply their knowledge to solve practical problems.
The Chronicle notes with concern that these weaknesses are recurring. The Chief Examiner emphasises that all tested topics were within the syllabus and blueprint, meaning students were not blindsided; they simply could not apply what they were taught. The persistent reliance on rote learning has crippled independent and critical thinking.
Classrooms have become spaces for copying notes rather than reasoning, for drilling past questions rather than understanding concepts. When students face unfamiliar problems, the results are disastrous, as we have seen in 2025.
The Ghana Education Service (GES) has argued that strict invigilation prevented malpractice, revealing the “true reflection” of students’ abilities. If this is accurate, then Ghana must confront the uncomfortable truth that previous results may have been artificially inflated. A system in which grades rise only when cheating is possible is not an education system, it is an illusion.
The Chronicle also observes with alarm the role of some teachers in perpetuating malpractice. When educators aid or abet cheating, they betray the students’ trust, compromise their futures, and undermine the credibility of the entire system. Such behaviour is reprehensible. We call on the GES to take decisive action: Teachers found facilitating malpractice must be removed from the system immediately. Accountability is essential if Ghana is to restore integrity to its schools.
With more than 16 percent of the national budget devoted to education, it is deeply troubling that students still demonstrate such fundamental weaknesses. The Chief Examiner’s findings reveal a persistent disconnect between teaching and learning. Teachers must stop prioritising rote memorisation and predicted questions over conceptual understanding. Classrooms must cultivate reasoning, curiosity, and problem-solving rather than conformity and repetition.
Parents also bear responsibility. Education cannot be delegated entirely to the state. Guardians must engage actively in their children’s learning, reinforcing discipline, understanding, and practical skills at home.
The 2025 WASSCE results are a national warning. Ghana cannot develop with a generation incapable of thinking mathematically. The Chief Examiner has spoken clearly. The crisis is real. The time for excuses is over. The time to restore integrity, rigor and quality in Ghanaian education is now.
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