Registrar and Chief Executive of the National Examinations Council (NECO), Prof. Ibrahim Wushishi, says a total of 1,376,391 candidates are taking the 2024 NECO Senior Secondary Certificate Examination across the country.
While monitoring the ongoing exams in Enugu on Wednesday, Wushishi revealed that the candidates comprise 706,490 males and 669,901 females.
Additionally, NECO is conducting the examination in six West African countries and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is participating for the first time this year.
According to Wushishi, over 2,000 international candidates are taking the exam, further expanding NECO’s reach beyond Nigeria’s borders.
“For this year we have recorded 1, 376, 391 candidates overall; 706, 490 male, 669,000 plus female candidates. The number this year exceed what we had recorded last year. Last year we had recorded 1, 205, 888 candidates. For this year we are having 1.3 million; so it’s an appreciation of enrollment rate as far as SSCE is concerned,” he disclosed.
During the monitoring exercises, the Registrar explained, “We embarked on this exercise to gain firsthand knowledge of the examination process and identify areas for improvement. With numerous processes involved in conducting the exam, it’s crucial for us to monitor the situation on the ground.”
He continued, “We focused on two geopolitical zones – the South East and South South – and visited various states in these regions, including Edo, Delta, Rivers, and Bayelsa in the South South, and Abia, Imo, Anambra, and Enugu in the South East. We traveled by road to make surprise visits to schools along the way, allowing us to assess the examination process and identify areas that require attention. This approach has provided us with valuable insights into the realities on the ground.”
He added, “So far South South and South East States visited, we have not found any fundamental thing that is negative in the processes of the exam. Everything is going fine; delivery of sensitive and non sensitive materials were done on time and all the exams and report and interactions from principals and major stakeholders – commissioners and directors in the ministries of education and schools we went attest to the fact that all the materials were delivered on time.”
He applauded the exercise, stating the he was impressed “with what I have seen so far, even the sitting arrangement was perfect.”
The Registrar who visited Federal Government College, Enugu and College of Immaculate Conception, told journalists that sitting arrangements in those schools were exemplary.
“In the Federal Government Collage the school is housing 574 students sitting in one hall and you cannot fault the sitting arrangement. The whole arrangement we have seen across the states in the two zones visited we are satisfied and we are also satisfied on the delivery of materials.”
He, however, reiterated the zero tolerance position of NECO on exam malpractice which he said had been made very clear from onset. “We have zero tolerance to exam malpractice and we will not stop at just proclamation, we take a lot number of measures to ensure that. First and foremost stakeholders are sensitised both parents and students, and policy makers. That’s why in 2022 we embarked on sensitisation of stakeholders in three regions of the nation. We also periodically sensitise stakeholders in the state through our state coordinations.
“We used to hold workshops and we also introduced measures to cub exam malpractice. We have introduced biometric machines to cub impersonation and apart from that our photo album has barcode. If you look at it very carefully you see it has a barcode. If you use your Android phone to scan the barcode you will see the details of the candidate appearing, that is also to cub malpractice.
“So we have put a lot of measures, scan measures, physical security measures, employing under cover security operators so that they will not know that they are security men and women. And even this fishing site, we have employed an intelligent section of the NECO. So we are working assiduously with Department of State Services to uncover this people that engage on this, so that we guard against the leakage of examination questions.”
