UK universities to consider NECO results for admitting international students

The University of Birmingham and Lead City University have began discussions with the National Examinations Council (NECO) about using its examination results to accept international students from Nigeria.

Ibrahim Wushishi, NECO‘s registrar, announced this in Abuja during an interactive session with Education correspondents.

He stated that the two universities have reached out to determine the credibility of NECO examinations for admission purposes.

He stated that NECO has met the conditions of Birmingham University, but the process is still ongoing with Lead City University.

The NECO registrar also discussed digitalisation and the potential migration to Computer-Based Testing (CBT), pointing out its importance to NECO examinations.

He disclosed that nearly 1.5 million students take exams in 76 different subjects and over 150 different papers annually for admissions into tertiary institutions, considering the possibility of CBT.

The professor said the challenges that come with CBT should be thoroughly dealt with in relation to NECO unlike other examination bodies like JAMB that primarily use multiple-choice formats.

“For the fact that NECO is the largest examination body by virtue of the number of examinations we conduct, migrating to CBT is a critical issue,” Wushishi said.

“For JAMB, they are not examining candidates in so many subject areas, so they find it very easy to embrace CBT in their examinations and do multiple choice in their exams.

“As far as NECO is concerned, if you look at the nature of our exams, particularly in SSCE internal for admissions into tertiary institutions, every year we examine students close to 1.5 million which is a large number.

“For these 1.5 million candidates, we examine them in 76 different subjects and more than 150 different papers.

“So if we look at the complexity of these exams, particularly the essays where we have different papers, going to CBT is something that experts need to sit down and look at the nitty gritty of the exams.

“We have to do that gradually, and there are some areas in our exams we could start with, like the common entrance examination, which is multiple choice-based, but then we must look at the nitty gritty of doing that.”