The Federal Government has announced plans to fully adopt privately-owned and public institution-based Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres for conducting the school-based Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) starting next year. Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja after inspecting a pilot CBT SSCE organised by the National Examinations Council (NECO) at Sascon International School, Maitama. Commending NECO for the smooth execution of the pilot phase, Alausa stated that future school-based SSCEs would take place at designated CBT centres instead of being conducted within school premises. 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 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. “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 and 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 his 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 phased rollout of the 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. “And 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. Fielding questions from newsmen after monitoring the ongoing NECO exam alongside members of the Senate Committee on Education (Basic and Secondary) at Government Secondary School, Maitama, Registrar of NECO, Prof. Ibrahim Dantani Wushishi, expressed the readiness of the exam 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 from 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, very much ready to do that as a professional body. Provisional infrastructures, we are calling for government at the state level to speed up making provision for CBT infrastructures in their states, because that will highly support the process. “Because we believe 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 . “And we are very happy that the results and certificates are recognised globally, and we need to also 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.”