Executive Director of the Institute for Education Studies (IFEST), Dr Peter Anti Partey, is urging Ghana to adopt a scientific, data-driven approach to addressing the sharp decline in performance in the 2025 WASSCE, particularly in Core Mathematics.

Speaking on Morning Starr with Naa Dedei Tettey on Monday, December 1, 2025, Dr Partey criticised the growing reliance on assumptions rather than evidence in discussing the results.

“People might want to talk about the issue of everything… These are perceptual reasons. They are not scientifically founded because we are not undertaking any rigorous exercise to determine the linkage between these variables and the performance,” he said.

Dr Partey stressed the need for rigorous examination of the data, including item analysis, examiner reports, and detailed school-by-school performance breakdowns to identify where the weaknesses lie.

“We should ask the Ministry of Education to let us know which schools are pulling the national averages down and what interventions the ministry is ready to provide for these schools,” he added.

His comments follow the release of the 2025 WASSCE results, which showed that more than 200,000 students failed Mathematics, with only 48.73% obtaining passes.

Social Studies also saw a decline, with just 55.82% of candidates passing—figures stakeholders have described as some of the worst in recent years.

The Ghana Education Service (GES), however, has defended the outcomes, arguing that the results reflect a more credible assessment of students’ abilities due to a strengthened anti-examination-malpractice framework, rather than deficiencies in teaching or school management.