Prof Ishaq Oloyede's bloodshot eyes told the story before his words could. He was in a tight spot.
As the head of Nigeria's Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) Oloyede faced the camera in May 2025 to apologise for what was a catastrophic technical error resulting in thousands of university entrance candidates being declared unsuccessful.
"As registrar of JAMB, I hold myself personally responsible including for the negligence of the service provider," he said in a video that went viral. "I unreservedly apologise for this and the trauma it has subjected Nigerians to, directly or indirectly."
The glitch had produced an unusually large failure rate in results for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), which JAMB conducts to determine university admissions across Nigeria.
When candidates complained, some officials, including education minister Tunji Alausa, initially attributed the mass failure not to technical error but to the elimination of cheating through computer-based testing.
"JAMB conducts its exam using a computer-based testing system. They have implemented strong security measures, and as a result, fraud or cheating has been completely eliminated. Unfortunately, we cannot say the same for WAEC (West African Examinations Council) and NECO (National Examinations Council)," the minister said.
WAEC and NECO conduct Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations (SSCE) in Nigeria. Good results in either exam, or both, are primary requirements for admission into post-secondary education courses.
"We have to use technology to fight this fraud," Alausa said. "There are so many 'miracle centres', and that is simply unacceptable. People cheat during WAEC and NECO exams and then face JAMB, where cheating is nearly impossible. That's the disparity we are seeing now. It's sad."
Planned deployment
Months after the UTME results controversy, the idea of computer-based testing in school certificate examinations is being reinforced.
The Nigerian government recently announced plans to transition all public examinations, specifically WAEC and NECO, from paper-pencil tests to computer-based evaluation by 2026.
Minister Alausa made this known during a monitoring visit to NECO's pilot CBT-based SSCE at Abuja's Sascon International School.
A statement from the ministry of education, signed by director of press Folasade Boriowo, quoted the minister as describing the examination as "a remarkable demonstration of possibility, preparedness and progress".
The minister declared that by 2026, all Secondary School Certificate Examinations would be held at accredited CBT test centres.
Infrastructure concerns
Experts feel transitioning from paper-pencil tests to computer-based evaluation for about two million students could be challenging for a country with infrastructure bottlenecks that impede power supply and internet penetration.
The cost of installing networked computers could be prohibitive for some schools, according to the Computer-Based Test Centre Proprietors' Association of Nigeria (CPAN).
Austin Chinedu Ohaekelem, the association's national president, believes few schools would be able to provide well-equipped halls for CBT.
Transportation to designated CBT centres, especially from remote villages, could also be a hitch. "While this won't be difficult to manage for a single-day entrance exam, the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations take weeks to complete," Ohaekelem told TRT Afrika.
Another issue that needs to be resolved is availability of trained technical staff to handle the complexities of holding such exams and scheduling of subjects and candidates.
Achievable goals
Despite the pitfalls of switching to a system fraught with technical and logistical challenges, the CPAN brass shares education minister Alausa's optimism about the possibility of pulling off the transition from paper-pencil test to computer-based testing.
"Like I said earlier, there's nothing entirely new about CBT testing, irrespective of where you are in Nigeria," Ohaekelem said. "Most students use mobile devices that connect to the internet. They are on social media. They sign up for different services and have email accounts too."
Although that might not be entirely true for children from economically underprivileged backgrounds, centre operators and the government look to the transition of university matriculation exams to computer-based testing as confirming the feasibility of doing the same for SSCE.
Experts say the ability of stakeholders to learn from the problems encountered by JAMB would play an important role in determining whether the system can now be scaled.
