Posted by Many Nigerians believed that the newly formed National Examination Council (NECO) in April 1999 was doomed to fail in its attempt to compete with the more established West African Examinations Council (WAEC).
However, with the help of its seven Registrars and Chief Executives, especially its present leader Professor Dantani Ibrahim Wushishi, a professor of Science Education, the exam board has overcome numerous hurdles and become a force to be reckoned with.
Among its responsibilities for the past 24 years have been administering the National Common Entrance Examination (NCEE) and the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), as well as the Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) for both internal and external applicants.
After taking office on July 26, 2021, Professor Wushishi evaluated the agency’s efforts in this area critically and began implementing reforms to increase its efficiency and credibility.
Once as dark as a dungeon, the Council’s Minna headquarters is now a beautiful sight when viewed from outside. The ICT division and NECO Warehouse both got new looks. Both the ICT Department and the Niger State NECO Office have received brand new 500 KVA transformers to help with the power outage issues that have plagued them since 2017.
The Registrar also gave the go-ahead for the purchase of 2,705 office chairs, recognizing the correlation between a pleasant work environment and high quality production.
He also promised to bring internet connectivity to all of the country’s state offices, and he supplied internet access at the headquarters by erecting a huge mast.
Many internal and external examinations have been conducted successfully under Professor Wushishi’s direction, schools have been accredited for both the BECE and the SSCE, and an ICT software has been developed to improve and guarantee fairness in the posting of staff for assignments.
Along with establishing a reward system for employees who go above and beyond in the performance of their duties, he also gave the go-ahead for the Department of ICT to install some basic restroom facilities.
With the goal of improving Test Development, Quality Assurance, and the prevention of examination malpractice and other offenses linked with public examinations, he established an online library to facilitate access to material and data on educational assessment and to boost the efficiency of his team’s work.
In a first for NECO, he implemented the use of stanine software for setting grade boundaries on the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE) Internal Examination, and Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE) External Examination. Because of this, grading cutoffs in the exam’s content no longer had to be determined manually.
Professor Wushishi revived staff training workshops, which in turn taught EDD subject officers the fundamentals of Item development for all of the Council’s exam subjects.
The staff received instruction in the statistical analysis software Stata and in the evaluation of the Trial Tested Items with the goal of selecting the most valid and reliable questions for use in future Council examinations.
The Council’s six regional offices (in the northeast, northwest, central, south, and southwest) were previously led by Zonal Coordinators but have since been upgraded to Directorates thanks to the efforts of Professor Wushishi and the Governing Board, which is led by the capable Dr. Abubakar Siddique.
Wushishi completed the perimeter fence of the NECO warehouse in Minna to secure NECO property, repaired warehouse drainages, and rebuilt a portion of the badly damaged warehouse, all of which were donated to the Department of Psychometrics.
In order to facilitate the preparation of examination topics for NECO tests, he authorized the procurement of an electronic grenade library for use by subject officers in all knowledge-based subjects.
The NECO e-verify App for Result Verification/Confirmation in 2023 was also introduced by Prof. Wushishi.
It is possible that Wushishi will go down in history as one of the few chief executive officers who will not be tainted with graft, given the open door policy and emphasis on transparency that is currently being practiced at NECO.