Former Education Minister Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum has attributed the sharp decline in the 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results to the current government’s decision to discontinue payments made to teachers for extra classes under the previous administration’s Free Senior High School (Free SHS) programme.
Speaking on the matter, Adutwum said the Akufo-Addo government had used an intervention grant to pay teachers to provide extra tuition to students, particularly those who needed support ahead of the examinations. He argued that the withdrawal of those payments by the Mahama administration directly undermined student preparation and contributed to the poor outcomes.
“We used to pay the teachers to teach extra classes to prepare the students. This government discontinued paying the teachers for that aspect. To me, I was not surprised that we got the results that we got,” he said.
He also pushed back against claims that the decline in results was linked to a crackdown on examination malpractice. Adutwum questioned the logic, pointing to data on cancelled examination papers.
“What I was surprised by is when I heard in the news that somehow the students didn’t do well because they had stopped cheating. Then I went to check the number of papers that were cancelled and this year six thousand subjects were cancelled compared to four thousand in 2024, so it couldn’t be true,” he said.
The 2025 WASSCE results revealed a sharp decline in student performance across core subjects, with the pass rate in core mathematics falling from 66.86 percent under the previous administration to 48.73 percent.
Among the interventions Adutwum says were cancelled was the GH₵165 million annual Intervention Grant for extra tuition, alongside a system of performance contracts for directors and headmasters, examiner-led teacher training, and the iBox digital learning project.
The Ghana Education Service (GES) has flatly rejected the former minister’s claims. In a statement signed by its Head of Public Relations, Daniel Fenyi, the GES said it was not true that any teacher allowances had been cancelled, noting that the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department had publicly explained the reasons for delayed November payments. The Service described the 2025 results as a credible reflection of students’ true academic performance and said strict anti-malpractice measures had improved the integrity of the examination process.
The GES urged the public to disregard Adutwum’s remarks, describing them as an attempt to shift attention from his own shortcomings in managing the examination process before leaving office.
Ghana is set to return to the international WASSCE format in May and June 2026, after having moved to a Ghana-only version under the previous administration. The GES has urged students to prepare adequately for the transition.
