The Head of Public Relations at the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), John Kapi, has expressed concern over the increasing use of pidgin and social media–style language in students’ WASSCE scripts.
In an interview, he noted that many candidates wrote in informal language, using slang and WhatsApp-like expressions in the 2025 English paper, warning that this trend is negatively affecting students’ performance.
“A significant number of candidates struggled to communicate in standard English, which greatly reduced their essay-writing scores. Examiners also observed “a lot of pidgin” in scripts, along with shorthand, jargon, and casual expressions commonly used on social media.”
His comments come at a time when WASSCE performance has seen one of its steepest declines in recent years. Passes in Core Mathematics from A1 to C6 dropped by more than 96,000, falling from 305,132 in 2024 to 209,068 in 2025.
SOURCE: Citinewsroom
