WAEC Insists full switch to CBT for WASSCE by 2026

The West African Examinations Council has reaffirmed its plan to migrate the West African Senior School Certificate Examination to a fully computer-based testing format by 2026.

Head of WAEC’s National Office, Dr. Amos Dangut, gave the assurance on Tuesday during a sensitisation meeting with members of the National Assembly Committee on Education in Abuja.

He said the transition, which began with private candidates in 2024, has already made “significant progress” and will be scaled up nationwide ahead of next year’s deadline.

“We have conducted five exams already, one for private candidates and one for school candidates, and by 2026, deployment will be massive,” he said.

Speaking on concerns about infrastructure and cyber risks, Dangut assured stakeholders that WAEC had successfully conducted exams in hard-to-reach areas without disruptions.

He explained that candidates’ performances in CBT had been “empirically better” than in paper-based tests.

Also, on 22nd July 2025, the Federal Government revealed that privately-owned Computer-Based Test centres and others belonging to public institutions would be fully deployed in the conduct of the school-based Senior School Certificate Examination by next year.

Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, speaking on the issues, 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.