Education Minister Sackey Concerned as 63.33% Fail English Language Exam
Aminata Koroma The Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, Conrad Sackey, has expressed concern over the performance of candidates in English Language, with only 9.77% obtaining grades between A and C6, while 63.33% failed.
Minister Sackey noted that although 41,269 candidates, representing 27.83%, registered to sit the English Language examination but were absent in 2025, the 19,464 candidates, representing 9.68%, who failed to turn up for the examination in 2022, remain a concern.
He said the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE) is addressing unsatisfactory learning outcomes in English Language through ongoing large-scale interventions at the foundational level as part of its long-term strategy.
In the short term, the Ministry is bringing together educationists at different levels of the education system to provide suggestions on how to improve performance in the subject.
As part of these efforts, the Ministry is exploring the possibility of introducing a crash in-service training programme for English Language teachers to help address the challenges affecting candidates’ performance.
Meanwhile, performance in Mathematics has shown improvement, with 62.15% of candidates, amounting to 108,850, obtaining a credit grade or better.
The Minister noted that the Mathematics results represent a significant improvement compared with the 46.71% recorded in 2025, with performance in the subject also considerably better than that of English Language.