The commentary on the 2025 WASSCE results reflects a profound misunderstanding of how achievement systems function and a misreading of WAEC’s own administrative data. High-stakes examination outcomes do not shift because of folklore about “apor,” political timelines, or moral judgements about cohorts. They shift when the instructional, organisational, and supervisory conditions of schooling change.
This is established in decades of empirical research. If system conditions are strengthened and performance improves, the claims currently being advanced collapse immediately. Explanations that cannot withstand changes in system quality lack analytical credibility.
Comparative research also shows that public narratives about educational performance often obscure the real drivers of achievement. Lubienski and Lubienski (2013) demonstrate that supposed advantages attached to particular groups or sectors disappear once system-level factors such as instructional coherence, organisational support, and leadership arrangements are examined. Achievement follows systems, not stereotypes. The present debate illustrates this pattern exactly. Assumptions are being used where analysis is required.
The idea that the 2025 decline occurred because students belonged to a previous administration is analytically indefensible. Political ancestry is a distant variable with no causal mechanism that can produce a sudden national decline in performance. Achievement is shaped by immediate conditions such as instructional quality, curriculum pacing, assessment preparation, supervision, and school level organisation (Fullan, 2007). When these conditions weaken, performance declines. When they strengthen, performance improves. The causal structure is clear and has no interest in partisan timelines.
The argument that strict enforcement caused the 2025 decline is equally weak. WAEC’s own data show that 2024 was the more stringent year. Three hundred and nineteen schools had results withheld for alleged collusion in 2024, compared to 185 schools in 2025. A claim that contradicts its own numerical evidence cannot stand. If strictness were responsible, the collapse would have occurred in 2024. The administrative record disproves this argument comprehensively.
Attributing the decline to the absence of leaked materials reflects a limited understanding of assessment validity. Even where surface-level practice exists, dramatic national decline does not occur unless the educational infrastructure has weakened. In assessment scholarship, test scores function as delayed indicators of system health (Brookhart, 2003). When leadership coherence, teacher support, curriculum coverage, or supervisory integrity decline, performance drops immediately and across the system. This is exactly the diagnostic pattern visible in 2025.
The steep and sudden decline observed in 2025 is itself a critical marker. Sharp one-cycle reversals indicate organisational disruption rather than long-term pedagogical weakness. If inflated scores or widespread malpractice had been the main cause of previous success, performance would correct gradually as conditions changed. Instead, we see an abrupt collapse consistent with what organisational theory identifies as a breakdown of instructional coordination, a mechanism well documented in leadership research (Leithwood, Harris and Hopkins, 2008).
Attempts to present the 2025 results as a revelation of “true competence” ignore the essential fact that achievement arises from distributed instructional processes. When these processes fail because of weak supervision, fragmented leadership, poor pacing, or inadequate preparation, the consequences appear immediately in national examinations (Popham, 2017). The evidence points clearly to system performance rather than the character of students.
The 2025 WASSCE results are therefore not a verdict on previous governments, nor a moral judgement on students. They are the predictable consequence of weakened system conditions. Achievement reflects the quality of instructional support, leadership coherence, and institutional readiness. The research, the data, and the theoretical frameworks all point to the same conclusion. Systems produce outcomes, and when systems falter, outcomes fall.
NB: This analysis is grounded in evidence and established research. It does not serve partisan interests. Readers are therefore encouraged to engage with the argument as a policy matter and not through a political lens.
References
Brookhart, S. M. (2003). Developing measurement theory for classroom assessment purposes. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 22(4), 5–12.
Fullan, M. (2007). The New Meaning of Educational Change. Teachers College Press.
Leithwood, K., Harris, A., and Hopkins, D. (2008). Seven strong claims about successful school leadership. School Leadership and Management, 28(1), 27–42.
Lubienski, C. A., and Lubienski, S. T. (2013). The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools. University of Chicago Press.
Popham, W. J. (2017). Classroom Assessment: What Teachers Need to Know. Pearson.
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