When WAEC went hard… the grades fell harder.
According to Kofi Asare, the Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, the significant decrease in the number of test malpractices during the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination is mostly attributable to the fact that the West African Examination Council has implemented a more stringent monitoring system this year. He expounded upon the idea that the stricter monitoring stopped pupils from receiving marks that they had not really deserved. The West African Examination Council (WAEC) has canceled the scores of 6,295 students for bringing prohibited items into the testing area, is looking into an additional 1,066 instances, and has delayed scores for hundreds of other students. Only 48.73% of students were able to pass Core Mathematics, which was the lowest rate of achievement. This is a significant decrease from 2024, when nearly 96,000 more students were able to receive a grade of A1–C6. In 150 schools, Eduwatch installed monitors, and the majority of them reported that the supervision was either good or exceptional. Mr. Asare went on to say that warnings from the Minister of Education, which included the possibility that teachers who were found to be engaging in dishonest behavior may be terminated from their positions, were helpful in decreasing the amount of misconduct. According to him, the 2025 examinations were made more reliable with the assistance of the stringent procedures that were put in place and the heightened attention that was exercised by the West African Examination Council (WAEC).
