Expert Blames WASSCE Failures On Society’s Embrace Of Mediocrity

Education expert and writer, Michael Omisore, has weighed in on the results announced by the West African Examination Council (WAEC), which showed a 33.8% decrease in performance in the May/June West African Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in Maths, English, and other subjects compared to last year’s WASSCE result.

The Head of the Nigeria Office of WAEC, Dr. Josiah Amos Dangut, announced on Monday, that 754,545 candidates out of 1,969,313 that sat for WASSCE, representing 38.32%, obtained credits and above in a minimum of five subjects including English Language and Mathematics.

He noted that a comparison of the percentage of candidates in WASSCE for School 2024 and 2025 reveals that there is a 33.8% decrease in performance. This translates to those who obtained credit and above in a minimum of five subjects including English Language and Mathematics being 72.12% previously.

However, Omisore noted that the performance-against-ability index does not add up, as it is significantly away from the true picture of the general academic abilities of the candidates.

He added that perhaps the serialisation of the objective test paper in English and Maths worked in reducing the effects of malpractice in those two main subjects, causing the decline in students’ performance in the two subjects.

He surmised that the English and Maths subjects’ failure “is all a reflection of a society that has embraced mediocrity, schools and teachers that are compromising integrity and excellence for survival, students who have come to embrace anti-learning tendencies.”

“On a cursory look, I have a little issue with the statistics of the result. 87% pass for five credits without English or Maths shouldn’t translate to 38% pass in five credits with English and Maths.

“Ideally, the gap should be less because how are they able to pass other subjects and not pass English Language when the exam is written in English? And how are they able to pass calculation-based subjects like Physics, Chemistry, and Accounts if they are not good in Maths?

“This performance-against-ability index does not add up. For me, it is significantly away from the true picture of the general academic abilities of the candidates, and if you ask me, the gap should be closed from the end of the result stat for passing without English or Maths.

“Maybe the serialisation of the objective test paper in English and Maths worked in reducing the effects of malpractice in those two main subjects, causing the decline in students’ performance in the two subjects or maybe the ordeal of the English Language exam, in which many students went through undue stress before writing the exam, affected the students’ performance negatively. I don’t know which one played out, because I am just an observer here.

“Now, is the decline in performance not expected? It is all a reflection of a society that has embraced mediocrity, schools and teachers that are compromising integrity and excellence for survival, students who have come to embrace anti-learning tendencies, an exam body really struggling to fulfill the due obligations for which it is set up, and an education system eating itself up by the poor and sharp practices of its different stakeholders,” he added.