Former Education Minister and Member of Parliament for Bosomtwe, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has attributed the decline in the 2025 WASSCE results to what he describes as the absence of a clear and structured “education formula” guiding the system.

Speaking on The Career Trail Season 4 on Joy Learning TV, he argued that sustained improvement in education requires a deliberate approach supported by data, consistent execution and continuous academic support.

“I believe that for you to succeed in everything, whether as a businessman or in public service, you need a formula. When you apply the formula, you may not get 100 per cent, but you will get 80 or 90 per cent. Things go wrong when there is no formula,” he noted.

Dr Adutwum explained that during his tenure as Education Minister, reforms were guided by structured data analysis from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to identify learning gaps in the system.

He said WAEC reports were reviewed annually to determine areas where students consistently struggled, particularly in mathematics and science.

“We would analyse the results at the end of the year using WAEC data. Their reports would show the difficult areas, and we could see where students were weak,” he indicated.

According to him, the findings were used not only to diagnose challenges but also to train teachers through targeted interventions involving examiners and subject specialists.

“Once we identified the gaps, we brought in examiners to train teachers so that when similar questions came again, students would be better prepared,” he explained.

He further revealed that additional instructional time was introduced as part of reforms, including structured extra classes beyond normal school hours.

“We used to pay teachers to run extra classes to prepare students better. That additional time made a difference in strengthening understanding,” he disclosed.

Dr Adutwum added that performance tracking by region also formed part of the reform strategy, allowing interventions to be tailored to specific needs.

He noted that education data was disaggregated by region and subject to identify underperforming areas and address them directly.

“This helped us see, for example, that one region may be struggling in chemistry while another is weak in biology, and we could intervene specifically,” he said.

He further explained that teacher deployment challenges were also addressed, where subject mismatches were identified.

“In some schools, the person teaching mathematics was not even a mathematics major. Once that was corrected, performance improved,” he stated.

According to him, these coordinated interventions contributed to improvements in pass rates in core subjects over time. However, he expressed concern that some of these gains are being eroded due to policy discontinuities and the discontinuation of certain support systems.