About 1,367,210 candidates are presently sitting for the 2025 Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) being conducted by the National Examinations Council (NECO) across the country using dual mode of Computer-Based Testing (CBT) and Paper Pencil Testing (PPT).

Of the 1,367,210 candidates, 685,551 are male while over 681,300 are female.

Kano state is listed among the highest number of registered candidates, with more than 137,000 enrolments, while Kebbi had the least, just above 5,000.

NECO Registrar, Prof. Ibrahim Wushishi, disclosed this on Tuesday during the monitoring of the conduct of the examination at a pilot CBT centre, SASCON International School, Maitama, Abuja on Tuesday in the company of Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa.

The examination marks the first time NECO is exploring the use of CBT to conduct the O-level examination in select centres in Nigeria.

Alausa had recently mandated NECO and the West African Examination Council (WAEC) to begin the conduct of their examinations, using CBT by 2026.

To this end, NECO deployed some already established schools in the FCT in its pilot phase.

Asked to explain how feasible it would be to deploy CBT to conduct the examination at the post-basic level, Wushishi said, “NECO is ready as a professional body to conduct examinations using any medium.

He added: “We may have challenges of infrastructure, that is obvious, but then, that will not bog us down not to do 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 countries where we will not be able to meet up with that, except that there are exceptional infrastructures to give us the opportunity to do that.

“But by and large, we are very ready to do that as a professional body. We are calling on the government at the state level to speed up with making provision for CBT infrastructure in their states.

“We highly support the process because we believe that the process will reduce a lot of issues that have to do with 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 recognized globally, and we need to do more in order to reach out across the world on our certificates and results. So NECO is fully ready as far as that is concerned.

“For this year, a total of 1,367,210 candidates registered for SSCE, the highest figure so far. Of these, 685,551 are male and over 681,300 are female. Kano State had the highest number of registered candidates with more than 137,000, while Kebbi had the least, just above 5,000.

“The lowest number of candidates was the Nigerian International School in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which registered eight students.”

Alausa said that to make the process hitch-free, candidates might need to take the examination outside their immediate school facility.

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 being 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 the case that students do not have the facilities. Schools do have the facilities.

“We have enough people. We also have to expand the value chain of these CBT centres. They should not just serve 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 computers, hardware, and software. And more importantly, we have entrepreneurs in Nigeria who are creating, developing these solutions. These are homegrown 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 this 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 practice, our exams being caught with cheating, 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 phase rollout of CBT format across all school exams, 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 full CBT.

“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. (The Nation)