Blame Mahama and the NDC for the current failure in the WASSCE results — Rev. Ntim Fordjour.

Former Deputy Minister of Education, Rev. John Ntim Fordjour, has blamed President John Dramani Mahama and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for what he describes as the current poor performance of some students in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) on Saturday, November 29, 2025, released the provisional results for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for School Candidates, triggering alarm with a catastrophic decline in performance across key core subjects, particularly Mathematics.

Data released by WAEC shows a staggering drop in the percentage of candidates achieving grades A1 to C6 in Core Mathematics, falling by nearly 18 percentage points compared to the previous year.

The results also unveiled a disturbing integrity crisis, with over 7,000 candidates penalised and nearly 40 educational personnel facing criminal charges for exam malpractice.

The results were contained in a press release by John Kapi, Head of Public Relations at WAEC, and represent only the Ghana version.

The comparative statistics from the four-year trend analysis (2022-2025) confirm a sharp reversal of gains made in previous years, casting a shadow over the performance of the 461,736 candidates who registered from 1,021 schools.

The steepest drop was recorded in the two mandatory numeracy and humanities subjects:

• Core Mathematics: Only 48.73% of candidates attained grades A1 to C6 in 2025. This represents a massive collapse from the 66.86% achieved in 2024. A total of 209,068 candidates passed with A1-C6, but 114,872 candidates (26.77%) failed the subject outright with an F9 grade.

• Social Studies: Performance dropped significantly to 55.82% passing with A1-C6, down from the 71.53% recorded in 2024. This leaves 122,449 candidates (27.50%) failing the subject.

The Council noted that the four-year period from 2022 to 2025 has shown “fluctuating trends in performance of candidates in all the core subjects”.