John Kapi, Head of Public Relations at the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), has attributed the sharp decline in Core Mathematics performance in the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) to specific skill gaps among students.

Speaking on the JOY Super Morning Show, Mr Kapi highlighted seven areas where candidates struggled, including representing mathematical information in diagrams, solving global math-related problems, constructing cumulative frequency tables, making deductions from real-life problems, solving simple interest applications, translating word problems into mathematical expressions, and interpreting results from cumulative frequency data.

“These are areas that the chief examiners can observe weaknesses in the candidates’ performance. Obviously, these are not topics that are outside the syllabus or the test blueprint,” he explained.

WAEC’s provisional results for the 2025 WASSCE show that more than half of the candidates — 220,008 out of 461,736 — failed Core Mathematics, marking the worst performance in the subject in seven years.

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.

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.

A total of 1,021 schools registered candidates for the examination, representing a slight 0.24% increase over 2024, while 5,821 candidates (1.26%) were absent.

John Kapi stressed that the decline in performance does not reflect a deviation from the curriculum but indicates the need for strengthened teaching and student focus on practical problem-solving skills.