The Federal Government has declared that there will be no going back on the full transition of the National Examinations Council (NECO), West African Examinations Council (WAEC), and other public examination bodies from paper-pencil to Computer-Based Test (CBT) mode of examination by 2026.

Minister of Education, Dr Olatunji Alausa, stated this during the monitoring of the pilot CBT Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) conducted by NECO at Sascon International School, Maitama, on Tuesday in Abuja.

A total of 1,367,210 candidates registered to participate in this year’s school-based SSCE, a figure NECO described as the highest so far.

Reacting to complaints by the public on the lack of adequate infrastructure to support the phasing out of paper-pencil examinations, Alausa disclosed that both privately-owned CBT centres and those belonging to public institutions would be fully deployed in the conduct of the examinations.

Alausa, who hailed NECO for the seamless conduct of the pilot phase of the CBT SSCE, said that in the future, school-based SSCEs would be moved to designated CBT centres, rather than being held within schools.

He said: “WAEC and NECO exams are school-based exams being conducted at their schools. No, we will move away from that.

“It is going to be like the way JAMB exams are conducted at CBT centres. We have thousands of CBT centres across the nation.

“Those are the centres that we are going to use. It’s not a case that students do not have the facilities. Schools do not have the facilities.

“We have enough people. We also have to expand the value chain of these CBT centres. They should not just service JAMB alone.

“They should be able to service WAEC and NECO. The proprietors of these businesses, the owners of these businesses, have invested billions of naira to set up these CBT centres. So we also have to help develop a new value chain in our economy.

“They will create jobs. You see a lot of computer hardware and software. And more importantly, we have entrepreneurs in Nigeria that are creating and developing these solutions. These are home-grown solutions. We should all be proud. Today, we should all stand tall and be proud of what we utilise.

“These are the kinds of opportunities that President Bola Tinubu is unleashing in every sector of his economy.”

Alausa further commended NECO for its preparedness to fully transition to CBT, noting that the pilot was a demonstration of capacity and commitment to reform.

“This is the first in the history of NECO, which is conducting its annual O-Level Certificate exams for SS3 students. This is a pilot that we pushed to have, and I must tell you, I was very impressed with what I saw.

“I have to commend the Registrar of NECO for the hard work that he and his team have deployed to get us to this stage, because when we decided that we’re going to go CBT, everybody thought this was an insurmountable task, but today, we’ve seen that this is a process, this is a transition that is possible.

“We just have to work hard to get there. We cannot continue with this madness of exam malpractice, our exams being caught with cheating and leaked questions—both WAEC and NECO. If we allow this to continue, it will destroy the capacity of our youth, of our children.”

He also disclosed a phased rollout of the CBT format across all school examinations, starting with objective questions this year.

“I’m a very happy person today that NECO has transited to CBT from paper-based. By November of this year, both NECO and WAEC objective exams will be fully CBT.

“And by next year, 2026, all the essays and objective exams will be CBT. NECO and WAEC will be joining the league of JAMB. We are making significant progress,” he added.

Registrar of NECO, Prof Ibrahim Dantani Wushishi, acknowledged that there were obvious infrastructure challenges, but said this would not hamper the Council from conducting CBT examinations, stressing that NECO, as a professional examination body, is ready to conduct examinations using any medium.

Fielding questions from newsmen after monitoring the ongoing NECO exam alongside members of the Senate Committee on Basic and Secondary Education at Government Secondary School, Maitama, Abuja, Wushishi expressed the Council’s readiness for the CBT mode of examination.

He said: “NECO is ready as a professional body to conduct examinations using any medium.

“We may have challenges of infrastructure, that is obvious, but then that will not bog us down or stop us from doing it. There are facilities that will give us the opportunity to conduct CBT, and we are good to go for that. We are all aware that there are certain difficult terrains across the country where we will not be able to meet up with that, except there are exceptional infrastructures to give us the opportunity to do that.

“But by and large, we are very, very much ready to do that as a professional body. We are calling on governments at the state level to speed up provision of CBT infrastructure in their states, because that will greatly support the process. We believe the process will reduce a lot of issues related to examination malpractice and improve the quality of the examination and, consequently, the results and certificates.

“We are very happy that the results and certificates are recognised globally and we need to also do more in order to reach out across the world with our certificates and results. So NECO is fully ready as far as that is concerned.”

Prof Wushishi revealed that a total of 1,367,210 candidates registered for this year’s SSCE, the highest figure so far.

Of these, 685,551 are male and over 681,300 are female.

According to him, Kano State had the highest number of registered candidates with more than 137,000, while Kebbi had the least, just over 5,000.

He also noted that the centre with the lowest number of candidates was the Nigerian International School in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which registered eight students.

Speaking after monitoring the examination at the Model Secondary School, Maitama, Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Education (Basic and Secondary), Senator Ekong Samson, pledged lawmakers’ commitment to putting in place every measure that will ensure a seamless transition to CBT exams.

“We are living in an age of technology. Nigeria must come to terms with what happens globally, and whatever measures we need to keep our educational system abreast with the world over, we will do that as legislators.”

According to him, the Senate will continue to monitor the process and put measures in place that will guarantee the quality of education in the country.

On his part, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Basic Examination Bodies, Hon Oboku Oforji (PDP, Bayelsa), who led the committee to monitor the NECO SSCE at Federal Government Boys College, Apo, Abuja, said the move was part of its oversight functions.

He commended NECO for the hitch-free examination.

“NECO is very important to us. This is our own. WAEC is also our own… We are very proud of what NECO is doing under the leadership of Prof Ibrahim Wushishi, and we pray that they sustain the tempo.

“We have gone round the school and we have seen the students’ commitment,” he said.