WAEC Rankings: Why Ghanaian Students Keep Beating Nigeria—and What We’re Getting Wrong

Each year, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) crowns its top performers across the region with the prestigious International Excellence Awards. And each year, Ghana continues to sweep the podium, leaving Nigeria, despite contributing nearly 75% of the candidates, curiously absent from the top three.

For Alhaji Muhammad Ibn Musa, National President of the All Nigerian Confederation of Principals of Secondary Schools (ANCOPSS), this trend is more than just disappointing, it’s a wake-up call.

“It’s not a statistic we should gloss over,” he said in a candid interview. “It speaks volumes about the cracks in our system. Honestly, if I had my way, I wouldn’t even want to talk about it, it implicates all of us.”

The problem, Musa insists, isn’t just about teachers or principals. It’s systemic. A tangled web involving educators, policymakers, parents, and students themselves.

The Competition We’re Ignoring

Musa believes that at the heart of this malaise is a fundamental mindset issue: many Nigerian students don’t even realize they’re in a regional contest. “They think it’s enough to just pass,” he said. “They aim for credit passes and move on. But education, especially at this level, should be about excellence—not survival.”

The analogy he draws is blunt but telling: “You can take a donkey to the river, but you can’t force it to drink.” Nigerian students, he argues, often lack the hunger that drives academic greatness.

The Role of Parents and the Culture of Shortcuts

The decline, Musa notes, begins at home. “We’re seeing a disturbing trend, parents pushing underage children into secondary schools, rushing them through grades, and prioritizing speed over readiness.”

Worse still, he says, many parents directly or indirectly enable exam malpractice. “We’ve seen students score as low as 72 out of 400 in JAMB and still proceed to WASSCE as though nothing’s wrong.”

With little accountability, these students aren’t learning, they’re ticking boxes. And increasingly, they’re not even using the tools at their disposal. “They all have smartphones,” Musa laments, “but 99.5% of what they browse isn’t academic. Parents don’t check, don’t care.”

The shift isn’t just cultural, it’s institutional. According to Musa, practices like giving holiday assignments, once a staple of public school discipline, are now nearly extinct. “We used to hold students accountable. Now, we’re letting too much slide.”

He’s not alone in his concern. ANCOPSS has already reached out to WAEC’s research department, urging an investigation into why Ghana keeps dominating while Nigeria falters. “Two years of no top-three placements is already too much,” he warned. “If it happens again this year, we’ll need more than introspection, we’ll need urgent reform.”

He acknowledges that Nigeria’s vast population should be an asset—but it’s becoming a liability in the absence of structure, strategy, and synergy among stakeholders.

“It’s not about just pointing fingers,” he said. “We all have to own this failure—teachers, parents, students, and the government. Only then can we begin to fix it.”

The stakes are high. Nigeria’s reputation as a regional educational powerhouse is fading—and unless swift action is taken, the brain drain may begin before students even finish school.

So long!