FG to deploy private CBT centres for school-based SSCE

The Federal Government says privately-owned Computer Based Test (CBT) centres and others belonging to public institutions will be fully deployed in the conduct of school-based Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) by 2026.

The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, disclosed this during the monitoring of a pilot CBT SSCE conducted by the National Examinations Council (NECO) at Sascon International School in Abuja on Tuesday, July 22, 2025.

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

The minister stated: “WAEC and NECO exams are school-based exams being conducted at their schools. But 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 a case that students do not have the facilities or 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 be to service JAMB alone.”

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Alausa also commended NECO for its preparedness to fully transition to CBT, stressing that the project was a demonstration of capacity and commitment to reform.

He added: “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.

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

On his part, NECO Registrar Prof. Ibrahim Wushishi expressed the readiness of the examination body for CBT.

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 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 there are exceptional infrastructures to give us the opportunity to do that.”

Wushishi also called on the government at all levels to speed up making provision for CBT infrastructures in their states, noting that this would highly support the process.

The Star