The Federal Government has expressed satisfaction with the ongoing National Examinations Council Computer Based Test Senior School Certificate Examination, describing the format as a significant advance in the effort to eliminate examination malpractice across secondary schools in Nigeria.

The Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba Ahmad, made the declaration on Wednesday after monitoring the examination at Redeemers Teap International School, Garki II, and Anglican Girls' Grammar School, Gudu, both in Abuja.

Ahmad said candidates at both centres reported no exposure to examination questions beforehand, attributing this to the CBT system's question randomisation feature, which assigns each candidate a distinct set of questions.

"I interacted with them to know whether they had seen the questions before the examination because that is one of the key challenges we are trying to address through CBT. They said no. Each student is writing a different set of questions, so even those sitting beside one another cannot communicate because their questions are different," she said.

The minister added that most candidates expressed a preference for the CBT format over the traditional paper based system, and that no technical failures, network disruptions, or delays had been recorded since the examination commenced.

"My assessment of the examination is that I'm very happy because from what I have seen in the two centres that I visited, the students are writing the CBT examination and they are happy. The setting for the examination is excellent," she stated.

Ahmad confirmed that a full nationwide transition to CBT would only proceed once adequate infrastructure was in place, with the government working alongside the National Assembly, state governors and private sector partners to fund and deploy the required facilities.

"We will not begin the complete transition until everything is ready because we do not want to put any student at a disadvantage," she said.

NECO Registrar, Prof. Ibrahim Wushishi, disclosed that 1,378,048 candidates registered for the 2026 examination, with female candidates slightly outnumbering their male counterparts, a trend he linked to sustained government investment in girl child education. He projected that results would be released by the first week of September to support the 2026 university admissions cycle.

The Principal of Anglican Girls' Grammar School, Nkiruka Nwafor, welcomed the shift, noting that her school had already introduced CBT for internal assessments from junior secondary level to ease students into the system.

"The CBT experience is what we've all been waiting for. The future our girls are going into is dynamic and heavily ICT driven. So it's about time, and it's good that it's happening," she said.