NECO @ 25: Transforming Assessment Through Technology, Capacity Building

As the National Examinations Council marks 25 years, Kuni Tyessi writes that its chosen theme for the silver jubilee, ‘Educational Assessment in a Changing World,’ goes beyond Nigeria to capture innovations, seek solutions to present challenges and create opportunities for the African continent.

When the National Examinations Council (NECO) was established in 1999, Nigeria needed an indigenous body to conduct senior secondary examinations and reduce the pressure on a single examining body. Twenty-five years later, NECO has grown into one of Africa’s largest assessment agencies, administering exams to over 1.5 million candidates annually and shaping how educational assessment responds to a rapidly changing continent.

The theme, “Educational Assessment in a Changing World: Innovations, Challenges, and Opportunities for Africa” is more than a slogan. It is the reality confronting NECO as it balances scale, credibility, and technology in a system serving a young, digital-first population.

The theme frames NECO’s anniversary not just as a celebration of Nigeria’s second-largest examination body, but as a moment to examine how large-scale assessment can evolve across Africa in response to technology, rising candidate numbers, and shifting learning needs.

From National Mandate to Continental Relevance

NECO was created to conduct the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) and the National Common Entrance Examination (NCEE), among others. What began as a national mandate has expanded in scope and capacity. The Council now operates zonal and state offices across Nigeria, with a network of examiners, supervisors, and IT personnel trained to manage mass assessments.

Capacity building has been central to that growth, particularly under the leadership of its Registrar and Chief Executive Officer, Prof. Dantani Ibrahim Wushishi, whose tenure has ensured that NECO invests in training over 20,000 examiners and supervisors nationwide, standardising item development processes, and strengthening its research and data departments to improve test validity. Partnerships with tertiary institutions and international assessment bodies have further exposed staff to global best practices in psychometrics and item banking.

Pioneering CBT in Nigeria’s Mass Examination System

One of NECO’s most visible milestones is its adoption of Computer-Based Testing (CBT). The Council began piloting CBT for its SSCE External in 2017, starting with objective papers. By 2023, NECO had expanded CBT to cover objective and essay components for some subjects, using a hybrid model that combines on-screen questions with offline answer capture where needed.

The shift to CBT which will take off fully in the next national exams will amongst other benefits, reduce logistical strain, shorten the marking cycle, and has created limited opportunities for malpractice. According to Prof. Wushishi, the introduction of e-marking and CBT has cut result release time from over 90 days to as low as 45 days in some years.

“CBT is not just about technology. It is about changing the culture of assessment,” a senior NECO official said at the 25th anniversary symposium. “We are building systems that can scale, that are data-driven, and that give candidates a fairer experience.”

Rising Candidate Numbers and Expanding Reach

NECO’s candidate numbers tell the story of Nigeria’s demographic pressure and growing demand for certification. From 574,000 candidates in the year 2000, enrollment crossed 1.2 million by 2015 and reached over 1.5 million in 2024. The increase is driven by both population growth and NECO’s acceptance across private and public schools nationwide.

The Council has also expanded access for diaspora and out-of-school candidates through its SSCE External and BECE programs. Special provisions for candidates with disabilities, and partnerships with correctional facilities reflect an attempt to make assessment more inclusive.

Innovations Meeting African Realities

Beyond CBT, NECO has rolled out e-registration, e-result checking, and digital certificate verification to reduce fraud and improve access. The Council’s e-verify platform now allows universities and employers to confirm results in real time, addressing a long-standing challenge in Nigeria’s education ecosystem.

NECO has also begun experimenting with item banking and computer-adaptive testing for smaller-scale assessments, positioning itself to move toward more flexible, on-demand testing models. These innovations are critical as Africa’s education systems grapple with high candidate volumes, limited infrastructure, and the need for faster feedback.

Persistent Challenges and the Road Ahead

The journey has not been without hurdles. Erratic power supply, uneven internet access, and the cost of scaling CBT remain significant barriers, especially in rural areas. Malpractice, though reduced, persists in new forms through technology. Funding constraints also limit the speed of infrastructure upgrades and examiner training. Yet these challenges point to opportunities. NECO’s experience offers a model for other African countries looking to build credible, large-scale assessment systems without relying solely on external bodies. Its work on localising item development, training indigenous examiners, and adapting CBT to low-bandwidth environments is already being studied by peers across West Africa.

As NECO marks 25 years, the focus is shifting from survival to leadership. The Council has signed MoUs with regional bodies to share expertise in test development and data analytics. The goal, officials say, is to help position Africa as a producer, not just a consumer, of assessment standards.

Looking to the Next 25 Years

According to Wushishi, “Educational assessment in Africa must be African-led, data-driven, and technology-enabled. Our young people deserve exams that reflect their reality and prepare them for a world that is changing faster than our classrooms.”

For NECO, the next phase will be defined by deeper integration of AI in marking and analytics, expansion of CBT to more subjects, and stronger alignment with competency-based curricula. If successful, the Council could help set the benchmark for how large-scale assessment adapts in the Global South.

At 25, NECO is no longer just a Nigerian institution. It is an African case study in how assessment can evolve to meet the demands of a changing world, one candidate, one innovation, one year at a time.