Ghana education experts urge focus on performance over WASSCE grading

Education experts are urging stakeholders to shift focus away from the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) grading system and toward improving student performance in Ghana.

Prof Stephen Adei, former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, argued that the grading structure is not responsible for fluctuations in results because it has remained consistent over time. While he noted the system is unnecessarily complicated and could be simplified, he cautioned against using single-year results to establish academic trends, suggesting that several years of data are needed to determine if standards are truly declining.

Similarly, Kofi Asare, Executive Director of Africa Education Watch (EduWatch), stated that the debate should center on why students struggle to meet required standards despite years of basic education. He explained that the use of stanine norms naturally results in a distribution where some students fall at the lower end of the curve, and emphasized that the conversation should prioritize improving educational outcomes rather than critiquing the grading mechanism.