The National Examinations Council [NECO] has introduced measures to curb racketeering in continuous assessment and strengthen the integrity of its examinations, dismissing claims that it establishes or operates ‘miracle centres’.
Registrar of NECO, Professor Dantani Wushishi, who disclosed this while speaking on the council’s efforts to tackle examination malpractice, said the reforms were part of measures that contributed to a 64.74 per cent reduction in malpractice cases recorded in the 2026 Senior School Certificate Examination [SSCE] Internal.
According to him, the number of candidates involved in various forms of examination malpractice dropped from 3,878 in 2025 to 1,406 in 2026.
Wushishi attributed the reduction to the deployment of technology in examination administration, including biometric verification, candidate photo-gating, barcode systems, computer-based testing (CBT) and randomisation of examination questions.
He said the council began intensifying the application of information and communication technology (ICT) in examination management after the current leadership assumed office in 2021.
‘We introduced several IT solutions and IT devices to curb the excesses of examination malpractice, having known the ease of examination malpractice as a teacher for more than 35 years,’ he said.
The registrar explained that NECO had introduced technology at various stages of the examination process, from test development to the conduct and marking of examinations.
He identified CBT as one of the major measures helping to reduce malpractice, saying the council had also randomised questions to make it difficult for candidates sitting close to one another to answer identical questions.
He said the same principle was applied to a large number of subjects conducted under the pen-and-paper mode because NECO currently operates a dual examination system.
‘CBT is one good answer to curb that, but it also comes with its own challenges. So, if possible, we will continue to increase our pace in the use of CBT,’ he said.
Wushishi added that a significant number of malpractice cases were detected during the marking of examination scripts by examiners.
The registrar said the council was also addressing loopholes in continuous assessment, which constitutes part of candidates’ final results but is largely generated and submitted by schools.
He said a committee constituted by the Minister of Education and comprising heads of examination bodies reviewed the challenges associated with continuous assessment and recommended measures to reduce manipulation.
He said the committee recommended that the contribution of continuous assessment to candidates’ final scores be reduced from 30 percent to 20 percent.
He added that the committee recommended that continuous assessment scores should no longer be submitted as a single cumulative figure.
‘First-term continuous assessment should be submitted by February. By March, you submit the second term. By April, you submit the final one,’ he said.
Wushishi disclosed that NECO had consequently developed a continuous assessment portal integrated into its main website to enable schools to submit the scores electronically.
He said the system would prevent schools from altering scores after submission.
‘The moment you submit your continuous assessment, you have no access to come and say, ‘Ah, I have forgotten something, we have a mistake, that we need to look at that continuous assessment again.’ It will never, never happen. Once you have submitted, you have submitted,’ he stated.
On the controversy surrounding ‘miracle centres,’ Wushishi said NECO did not establish or operate such centres, stressing that the council only accredits schools that meet its requirements to conduct its examinations.
‘We have nothing to do with miracle centres. In fact, as a council, we are not even aware of the existence of miracle centres,’ he stressed.
He explained that NECO owned only one school, the NECO Demonstration School, which had been upgraded to the SSCE level to serve as a model for the council’s examination administration.
According to him, schools seeking to serve as examination centres must undergo accreditation, while existing centres are subject to periodic reassessment.
He said NECO conducted accreditation exercises in February and October to ensure that schools continued to meet the required standards.
Wushishi, however, said the council had mechanisms for identifying centres suspected of facilitating examination malpractice.
‘As professionals in assessment, we have what we use to suspect a centre to be a miracle centre. And once that centre manifests such characteristics, we move quietly to assess the centre and determine whether it’s a miracle centre or not, on the basis of our accreditation records,’ he said.
The registrar cited an incident involving a public secondary school in Kogi State during the 2026 examination, where a NECO supervisor and other examination personnel were reportedly abducted.
He said the incident was subsequently attributed by the state Ministry of Information to the school being a ‘miracle centre,’ a description he rejected.
According to Wushishi, the school was established by the government about 40 years ago and had been accredited by NECO as an examination centre since 2000.
He said council records showed that the school had consistently presented candidates for its examinations, with the number never exceeding about 70 candidates.
He also noted that the supervisors deployed to the centre were employees of the Kogi State Ministry of Education who had served for several years.
Wushishi questioned how such a government-owned and accredited school could be classified as a miracle centre.
He said the responsibility for addressing the proliferation of such centres should involve state governments, which own public schools and regulate private schools within their jurisdictions.
The registrar further disclosed that NECO had introduced a system to verify the qualifications of teachers engaged in marking its examinations through the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria [TRCN].
He said schools would provide details of teachers during the accreditation process, including information on whether they possessed TRCN certification.
The information, he said, would be cross-checked through an interface between the NECO and TRCN portals before qualified teachers were recruited for examination-related duties.
Wushishi said the reforms, including the use of technology, question randomisation, stricter accreditation, continuous assessment controls and teacher verification, were designed to strengthen the credibility of NECO examinations and further reduce malpractice.