Volta Education Directorate calls for collective effort to improve WASSCE performance

The Volta Regional Education Directorate has charged heads of Senior High and Technical Schools (SHS/SHTS) to actively engage members of their Boards of Governors and parents to identify practical ways of improving school performance.

The call was made at a Capacity Building Workshop for School Leadership and Heads of SHS/SHTS in the region, which focused on analysis of the 2025 WASSCE results and data-driven decision making.

According to the Directorate, WASSCE remains an important measure of students' academic achievement at the Senior High School level, and analysis of the four core subjects provides an overview of academic performance and readiness for progression to tertiary education.

The Directorate expressed serious concern that in the 2025 WASSCE, none of the candidates presented by some schools in the region obtained grades A1 to C6 in the core subjects, describing the situation as worrying and one that calls for further investigation and appropriate intervention.

The report, which covered 68 public SHSs and a total of 26,544 candidates, shows that only 4,067 candidates qualified with passes in all four core subjects, representing an overall pass rate of 15.32 percent. This is the key requirement for progression to tertiary education.

Out of the total candidates, 12,145 were males and 14,399 were females. Out of this, 1,964 males qualified, representing 16.17 percent, while 2,103 females qualified, representing 14.61 percent.

A subject-by-subject breakdown further highlights the depth of the challenge, with Core Mathematics emerging as the worst-performing subject. Only 6,618 out of 26,484 candidates passed Mathematics, representing 24.99 percent.

Integrated Science recorded a 35.93 percent pass rate with 9,512 out of 26,475 candidates passing, while Social Studies recorded 38.23 percent with 10,140 out of 26,527 candidates passing. English Language was the best performed subject with 60.50 percent, with 16,053 out of 26,536 candidates passing.

The most badly affected schools, which has all candidates failed to obtain the required passes in the four core subjects, are Kpeve Senior High Technical School with 117 candidates, Ave Senior High School with 150 candidates, Tanyigbe Senior High School with 179 candidates, Volta Senior High School with 35 candidates, and Akome Senior High Technical School with 206 candidates. All 687 candidates from these schools failed to qualify.

To address the challenges, the workshop recommended that the Regional Directorate should organise forums and training sessions for the Federation of Boards of Governors (BoGs), with each school nominating at least two members to participate, and that heads of schools should actively engage BoGs and parents.

Further recommendations included encouraging students to give equal attention to the four core subjects as they do to elective subjects, building the capacity of teachers to adopt innovative and effective teaching approaches, developing a clear transformation agenda and incorporating it into School Improvement Plans (SIP) for effective implementation and monitoring, aligning teaching methods with curriculum standards, and intensifying monitoring in schools by both the Regional Directorate and school management.