Chidimma Uchegbu
The Registrar, National Examinations Council (NECO), Prof. Ibrahim Wushishi, has said that the complexity of its examination may not allow for immediate migration from paper to Computer Based Test (CBT).
Wushishi was speaking during an interactive session with newsmen on key milestones achievement of the council in Abuja on Wednesday.
He said that by virtue of being the body conducting the largest numbers of examinations, migrating to CBT would take gradual step.
“For the fact that NECO is the largest examination body by virtue of the number of its examination we conduct, migrating to CBT is a critical issue.
“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 exams.
“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 students close to 1.5 million which is a large number.
“For this 1.5 million candidates, we examine these candidates in 76 different subjects and more than 150 different papers.
“So if we look at the complexity of this exams, particularly the essays where we have different papers, going CBT is something that experts need to sit and look at the nitty gritty of the exams,” he said .
Wushishi said that this was to ensure that standards of its exams in the areas of acceptability, reliability and credibility is maintained.
He added that international universities such as Lead university, and Birmingham City university in the UK wrote the council to use its results to apply for those institutions.
He said this showed the credibility and acceptance of its results to international institutions, hence would not rush in migrating to CBT.
“We have to do that gradually and there are some areas in our exams we could start with like the common entrance examination which is multiple choice based but then we must look at the nitty gritty of doing that,” he said.
On stemming examination malpractices in its upcoming SSCE internal examinations, Wushishi said there was no fear of exams leakages as it had put in place sophisticated mechanisms to check malpractices.
“We are putting in place programmes for continuous sensitisation awareness. We are going to improve in the area of data protection to protect our candidates information.
“We are getting sophisticated identity to check malpractices as well as identify fishing sites to know if our papers leaked.
“We have no fears of any malpractices in the conduct of our exams coming up in June,” he said.
Reeling the milestones of the council, he said that in its 25 years of existence, the council had discharged its responsibilities in line with the mandate of the organisation.
He also noted that so far the council had examined 34 million Nigerian youths as well as conducted trial testing exams for selection of best items in its examination.
He added that on assumption of office in 2021, the council embarked on nationwide tour of its offices, noting that this resulted to policy leading to the turnaround of its activities.
