The Yearly Phenomenon of Withheld Results, Ghost Students, and the English Wahala- What the 2025 WASSCE Results Really Reveal
By Edward “Dictionary” Caulker
Each year, the release of Sierra Leone’s West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results triggers the same emotional rollercoaster joy for some, despair for others, and frustration for many.
The Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE) calls it a story of “progress and challenges.” But beneath the glossy statistics and press briefings lies a deeper reality one that questions the health of Sierra Leone’s education system and its readiness to tackle a learning crisis decades in the making.
At the government’s weekly press briefing on October 21, 2025, MBSSE Communications Specialist Augustine Bamie Anthony presented the ministry’s official analysis of this year’s WASSCE outcomes. His message was cautiously optimistic: the system is improving, but the cracks remain visible.
According to the ministry, 148,313 candidates registered for the 2025 exams. Results were received for 97,817 of them, while a staggering 13,237 results were withheld by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) for suspected irregularities. Another 35,020 candidates were marked absent, raising uncomfortable questions about attendance, exam readiness, and integrity in school data systems.
For many families, this “withheld results” saga has become an annual ritual of heartbreak. Each year, thousands of students wait anxiously for outcomes that never arrive, their dreams suspended in bureaucratic limbo as investigations drag on for months.
Anthony says reforms are on the way. “Going forward, we will be using National Identification Numbers (NINs) to ensure no pupil registers twice and to curb fraud,” he announced a sign that MBSSE is finally confronting long-standing issues of ghost candidates and data manipulation.
If there’s one subject that continues to haunt Sierra Leone’s educational landscape, it is English Language the medium of instruction for every other subject. In 2025, only 11.77% of candidates passed English with credit, a statistic that underscores the nation’s literacy crisis.
“Passing English has been a problem in all our public exams,” Anthony admitted, pointing to weak continuous assessment practices, limited reading culture, and poor foundational learning. Last year, several school principals were even suspended for failing to upload students’ assessment scores a move meant to instill accountability, but one that also exposed how fragile the administrative backbone of schools can be.
Education experts have long warned that English proficiency is the key that unlocks every other form of learning. Without reading comprehension, students struggle with exam questions in science, social studies, or even mathematics. “This learning poverty,” Anthony emphasized, “is a big issue. We must focus on foundational literacy and numeracy.”
Interestingly, Mathematics showed signs of improvement, with a 47% pass rate a noticeable leap compared to previous years. The ministry credits teacher training, technology integration, and WAEC’s new serialization system, which produces different versions of the same exam across regions to prevent cheating.
This reform has reduced organized malpractice including the notorious exam-answer leaks on WhatsApp and Telegram but it has also led to more withheld results. Thousands of students are caught in suspicion nets, their future plans derailed while investigations crawl through the bureaucracy.
Anthony said a joint review committee comprising MBSSE, WAEC, and civil society organizations is now vetting withheld results to ensure only credible evidence justifies cancellations. He also confirmed that the ministry is reviewing the WAEC Act to strengthen oversight and enforcement against malpractice.
“We are requiring evidence before results are canceled,” he assured. Yet for affected students, that assurance offers little comfort. Their dreams of university admission or scholarships remain hostage to an opaque verification process.
Despite these challenges, MBSSE insists Sierra Leone’s education indicators are on an upward trajectory.
- NPSE pass rate: 78% → 81%
- BECE pass rate: 72% → 96%
- WASSCE pass rate: 18% → 52%
These figures suggest progress, thanks in part to reforms under the Free Quality School Education (FQSE) initiative. The government has also recruited 220 new School Quality Assurance Officers to strengthen supervision and enforce standards nationwide.
“Teachers are the quiet builders of our nation,” Anthony said, revealing plans for a National English Subject Teachers’ Association to help improve language instruction and teaching consistency.
But statistics, as hopeful as they sound, do not tell the whole story. For every success recorded, thousands of students continue to fall through the cracks — victims not of laziness or lack of potential, but of systemic neglect: overcrowded classrooms, untrained teachers, weak supervision, and decaying school infrastructure.
When English the very tool of instruction becomes a barrier instead of a bridge, the education system itself begins to crumble.
The 2025 WASSCE results, then, are more than a report card; they are a mirror reflecting the state of Sierra Leone’s learning system progress shadowed by inequality.
Until withheld results stop being an annual headline, until “ghost students” are no longer in the data, and until English passes become the norm rather than the exception, Sierra Leone’s education system will remain unfinished business.
As the nation celebrates its top scorers, it must also confront the uncomfortable truth that thousands more are left behind stranded between statistics and reality, still waiting for the promise of free quality education to feel truly free, and genuinely quality.
