From the Ghana-Nigeria Jollof challenge to the world of football, Ghana has taken over the WAEC secondary schools awards as the country’s 2025 WASSCE students sweep WAEC awards and outshine Nigeria, Liberia, and other WAEC member states in what is becoming a Ghana-dominated award in recent times.
When the brilliant minds from WAEC member states were recognized at the 74th Annual Council Meeting of WAEC in Accra, from 24th to 28th March, Ghana emerged as the country to have produced the 2025 WASSCE exam year’s top three candidates in the WASSCE for school candidates.
This success is no mean achievement given the magnitude of the examination and the large number of students across the WAEC member states that sat for the examination, which serves as a conduit between secondary education and tertiary education and students’ career paths.
READ: First Series WASSCE results released by WAEC
The announcement of the heroic and outstanding performance of the students was unveiled at the 74th Annual Council Meeting of WAEC at Accra’s International Conference Centre. According to WAEC, the students obtained the highest cumulative scores among 2,612,830 candidates. The examination per WAEC’s data for the 2025 WASSCE was administered to some 2,612,830 candidates. The number covers all candidates from The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. This was made public in Accra by the Head of Public Affairs of WAEC Headquarters, Ghana, Demianus Ojijeogu.
Who are Ghana’s top 2025 WASSCE students that won the WAEC 2025 awards?
Ghana’s 2025 WASSCE students who clinched WAEC’s top 3 awards were all girls, an indication that female students are taking the world by storm and making themselves counted as the best.
The first winner and the best 2025 WASSCE candidate honour went to Ghana’s Miss Huda Suleman. As the overall best candidate, she clinched the enviable, prestigious Augustus Bandele Oyediran Award for Best Candidate in West Africa, 2025.
The second best 2025 WASSCE award went to Miss Paula Suwo, while Ghana sealed the top three spots with the performance of Miss Matthea Aba Andoh.
At the 74th Annual Council Meeting of WAEC, Ghana’s Education Service Director General, Prof. Ernest Davis, was elected vice chairman of the council. He will serve for a one-year tenure. He takes over from Amos Fully of Liberia.
READ: All 2026 WASSCE Social Studies Questions To Expect From WAEC
The WAEC 74th Annual Council Meeting saw the vice president of Ghana, Vice President Jane Opoku-Agyemang, opening the meeting on behalf of the president, John Dramani Mahama.
Speaking at the event, the vice president, on behalf of the president, congratulated WAEC on 74 years of service to the five-member state examination council. The council was challenged to maintain its education and assessment standards across West Africa.
WAEC and The Surge In Examination Malpractices
While we celebrate Ghana’s 2025 WASSCE top 3 students sweeping WAEC’s top 3 awards, we cannot loose sight of the dangers examination malpractice poses to our education and assessment in WAEC member states with Ghana in focus.
The vice president did not mince words when she called out WAEC to work on the ever-surging examination malpractices across the various examinations. She warned that the examination malpractices, if not curbed, would negatively impact the integrity of the council and its work.
“We commend the Council for the innovative mechanisms it has put in place to maintain fairness, transparency, and integrity in its examination process. However, the surge in examination malpractice threatens to erode these enviable goals. The plethora of fraudsters, all too ready to falsify results and alter certificates, threatens the very core of WAEC’s mandate,” she stated.
She further called on WAEC and its staff to be guided by important key values such as truth, honesty, and integrity to help defend the credibility of the council’s examination.
At the meeting to lend support to WAEC’s good works and contribution to education and assessment was Deputy Minister Dr. Clement Apaak on behalf of Ghana’s Minister of Education, Hon. Haruna Iddrisu. He used the occasion to announce Ghana’s return to the international version of WASSCE from the 2026 examination, which starts in April.
2026 BECE & WASSCE Dates
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) will administer the 2026 BECE for Ghanaian basic school leaving students from 4th May to 11th May, while the International WASSCE for all member state students in their final years at the secondary school level will start the examination on 7th April 2026. We use this medium to congratulate all Ghana’s 2025 WASSCE students for sweeping all the top three WAEC awards and outshining Nigeria, Liberia, and others and to challenge the 2026 batch of candidates to even do better.
READ: Confirmed 2026 WASSCE Timetable: Simplified & Full PDF Download
However, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the overall failure rate of Ghanaian students at the WASSCE, especially in core subjects such as Core Mathematics, Integrated Science, Social Studies, and English Language, has declined to an all-time low per the 2025 WASSCE chief examiners’ report.
2025 WASSCE Core Subject Performance (A1–C6)
The table below shows the percentage of candidates who obtained a pass grade (A1–C6) compared to the previous year:
| Subject | 2024 Pass Rate (%) | 2025 Pass Rate (%) | Trend |
| Core Mathematics | 66.86% | 48.73% | 📉 -18.13% |
| Social Studies | 71.53% | 55.82% | 📉 -15.71% |
| Integrated Science | 58.77% | 57.74% | 📉 -1.03% |
| English Language | 69.52% | 69.00% | 📉 -0.52% |
Key Insights & “Outright Failures” (F9)
While the pass rates fell, the number of students failing completely (Grade F9) skyrocketed, which is a major concern for tertiary admissions.
Mathematics Crisis: Nearly 1 in 4 candidates (26.77%) failed Mathematics outright with an F9. In 2024, that figure was only 6.10%.
Social Studies Shock: Social Studies recorded its worst performance in a decade, with 122,449 candidates (27.50%) scoring F9.
Science & English: English remained the most stable subject, though the F9 rate still doubled from roughly 6% to 12.86%.
READ: WASSCE 2026 Ghana: Critical Topics You MUST Study to Pass
Why the Sharp Drop?
Experts and WAEC officials have pointed to a few critical reasons for these 2025 statistics:
Strict Supervision: WAEC implemented “enhanced exam-integrity enforcement,” which significantly reduced examination malpractice. Many observers believe these results are a “true reflection” of student ability without external aid.
Integrity Crackdown: Over 6,200 subject results were cancelled, and 35 people (including 19 teachers) were prosecuted for exam crimes.
Foundational Gaps: Chief examiners noted that many students struggled with word problems in Math and basic scientific terminology in science.
Next WAEC Annual Council Meeting Host Announced
Nigeria is expected to host the 75th WAEC Annual Council Meeting in March 2027.
The Ghana Education News Editorial Team is a specialized collective of education researchers, journalists, and policy analysts dedicated to providing high-fidelity reporting on the Ghanaian academic landscape. Serving as a primary bridge between governing bodies—including the Ghana Education Service (GES) and WAEC—and the public, the team leverages over a decade of combined experience to serve students, parents, and educators nationwide.
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