Professor Eric Anane, the Director of Education at the University of Cape Coast’s Centre for Psychometric and Cognition, stated that the significant increase in F9 scores observed in the 2025 WASSCE should be seen as the result of longstanding structural challenges within Ghana’s education system, rather than as an isolated incident. During an appearance on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Monday, December 1, he explained that the failure patterns across core subjects—particularly mathematics and social studies—highlight weaknesses in teaching quality, limited learning time, and students’ inability to apply their knowledge to real-world situations.
Core Mathematics experienced one of the most dramatic declines, with the F9 rate rising from 6.10% in 2024 to 26.77% in 2025. This statistic indicates that one in every four candidates failed the subject outright. Similarly, social studies, which is generally regarded as one of the more manageable subjects, saw its F9 rate triple from 9.55% to 27.50%. Prof. Anane attributed part of the problem to insufficient contact hours at the senior high school level. “We need to cumulatively examine whether students are getting enough time to learn the curriculum assigned to them,” he stressed.
He noted that many schools lack libraries and learning resources, while students who commute under the current double-track structure often lose valuable study time. He also highlighted teacher shortages and misplacement, saying several schools continue to rely on teachers handling subjects outside their areas of specialisation. “There are many cases where schools do not have a social studies teacher, so another teacher is asked to step in. That affects quality,” he said.
Another major factor, he explained, is the shift in the nature of exam questions. Ghanaian students, he said, continue to struggle with application questions, a weakness rooted in decades of memorisation-based teaching. “The more application questions WAEC introduces, the more our students fail,” he observed. “We are teaching learners to memorise and reproduce, not to think and apply.”
Prof. Anani further pointed to challenges in textbook quality, oversized classrooms, and poorly implemented continuous assessment, which he described as “inflated” and not reflective of actual student ability. While noting that about 75% of students passed — which falls within a normal distribution pattern — he said the 20-point jump in failure rates is a “worrying trend” that demands urgent policy attention.
He called on the Ghana Education Service (GES) to revise its recruitment and deployment strategy, strengthen teacher professional development, and ensure textbooks and other learning materials are “fit for purpose”.
Source: Winifred Lartey
