The National Examinations Council, NECO, said it may take some time before it adopts for its examinations the current trend of computer-based tests, CBT.
The NECO registrar, Prof. Ibrahim Wushishi, gave the hint during a media chat with journalists in Abuja.
He explained that the complexities of all the examinations the NECO Board conducts may not permit a smooth and immediate migration from paper to CBT for now.
He said: “For the fact that NECO is the largest examination body by virtue of the number of its examinations we conduct, migrating to CBT is a critical issue. As far as NECO is concerned, if you look at the nature of our exams, particularly in SSCE for internal admissions into tertiary institutions, every year we examine students close to 1.5 million, which is a large number.
“For these 1.5 million candidates, we examined them in 76 different subjects and more than 150 different papers. So if we look at the complexity of these exams, particularly the essays where we have different papers, going CBT is something that experts need to sit down and look at the nitty gritty of the exams.”
He added: “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.”
Wushishi also revealed that, so far, NECO has examined 34 million Nigerian youths and conducted trial testing exams to select the best items for its examination.
