Why NECO can’t migrate to computer-based examinations for now — Registrar

The Registrar, National Examinations Council (NECO), Ibrahim Wushishi, says the complexity of the body’s examinations may not allow for immediate migration from paper to Computer Based Test (CBT).

Mr Wushishi, a professor, was speaking during an interactive session with journalists on key achievements of the council, on Wednesday in Abuja.

He said that by virtue of being the body conducting the largest number of examinations, migrating to CBT would take gradual steps.

“For JAMB, they are not examining candidates in so many subject areas, so they find it very easy to embrace CBT in their examinations and do multiple choice in their rest.

“As far as NECO is concerned, if you look at the nature of our exams particularly in SSCE internal, for admissions into tertiary institutions, every year we examine close to 1.5 million students, which is a large number.

“For this 1.5 million candidates, we examine them in 76 different subjects and more than 150 different papers,” Mr Wushishi said.

The Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) blazed a trail with the introduction of CBT for the conduct of the Unified Tertiary Matricula Examination in 2013.

However, JAMB adopts multiple choice-based questions system for the UTME, which is conducted for a candidate in just one day.

But NECO’s examinations are a combination of multiple choice and theory questions, with some subjects also having practical tests that are conducted in laboratories. NECO examinations also hold for over a month with each student taking a minimum of nine subjects during the period.

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But the West African Examination Council (WAEC), which similarly conducts the senior school certificate examinations for the same level of students as NECO, took on the challenge in January this year by experimenting CBT with private students.

WAEC has a relatively fewer candidates registered for the January diet. Also, the practical tests in relevant subjects are set in theory form, which does not require physical laboratory or equipment.

‘Gradual transition to CBT’

Mr Wushiahi said that international universities such as Lead University and Birmingham City University in the U.K. wrote the council to use its results to apply for those institutions.

According to Mr Wushishi, this shows the credibility and acceptance of its results, to international institutions, hence it will not rush in migrating to CBT.

“We have to do that gradually and there are some areas in our examination we could start with, like the National Common Entrance Examination (NCEE) which is multiple choice based, but then, we must also look at the nitty gritty of doing that,” he said.

On stemming examination malpractices in its upcoming Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) internal, Wushishi said there was no fear of examination leakages, as it had put in place, sophisticated mechanisms to check malpractices.

“We are getting sophisticated identity to check malpractices, as well as identify phishing sites to know, if our papers leaked.

“We have no fears of any malpractices in the conduct of our examination coming up in June,” he said.

Milestones

Talking about the milestones of the council, Mr Wushishi said that in its 25 years of existence, it had discharged its responsibilities in line with its mandate.

He said that so far, the council had examined 34 million Nigerian youths, and conducted trial examinations for selection of best items in its examination.

Mr Wushishi added that on assumption of office in 2021, he had embarked on nationwide tour of its offices saying that this resulted to policies leading to the turnaround of its activities.

(NAN)