September 5, 2025
One of the biggest mistakes Nigeria could make in the coming years is to force secondary school students to sit for the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and National Examinations Council (NECO) examinations using computers. On paper, the idea looks modern, even progressive. After all, much of the world is moving toward digital assessments. But in practice, for a country like Nigeria—where power supply is unstable, internet connectivity is patchy, schools are underfunded, and families are battling daily survival—the policy is not only premature but also dangerous.
A Country Not Ready for Digital Exams
Let us face the reality: Nigeria does not have the infrastructural backbone required for nationwide computer-based examinations. We are a country where electricity is never guaranteed, where many communities spend days in darkness due to power cuts, and where internet services are often slow, unreliable, or entirely absent. If our students cannot depend on light bulbs staying on or networks staying up, how can they depend on computers to sit for life-defining exams?
Even the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), which is already computer-based, has repeatedly exposed these weaknesses. Candidates often report being logged out midway, facing system crashes, or sitting idle for hours while servers are rebooted. And that is for one exam, on one day, for one subject per candidate. Now imagine the same chaos repeated across nine subjects, spread over weeks, for millions of students. It would be a disaster on a national scale.
Students Already Carry a Heavy Burden
The problem goes beyond electricity and internet. Nigerian students are already struggling under the weight of poverty and social hardship. Many travel long distances to school each day because their communities lack functioning secondary schools. Some trek for hours; others squeeze into unsafe, overcrowded buses because their parents cannot afford regular transportation. By the time they arrive in class, they are already exhausted.
For countless students, hunger is another battle. Reports regularly show that millions of Nigerian children go to school on empty stomachs. How can a child expected to write complex computer-based exams concentrate when the most basic need for food is unmet? In schools where children faint during lessons due to hunger, talk of laptops and servers feels like cruel irony.
Then there is the cost of survival. Families are crushed by inflation and unemployment, struggling to afford textbooks, uniforms, and even exam registration fees. Now, with computer-based examinations, they will face new expenses—transportation to distant computer centers, the pressure to buy or rent devices, and possibly internet access for practice. For poor households, this policy would be a fresh layer of hardship.
The Digital Divide Is Real
Even if these socioeconomic struggles did not exist, digital inequality alone makes the policy unworkable. Students in elite private schools in Lagos or Abuja may already be familiar with computers, but for millions in rural Kano, Sokoto, or Ebonyi, the reality is different. Many schools do not have functioning computer labs, and some children have never touched a computer keyboard before.
In some rural areas, cybercafés remain the only window to digital exposure. Expecting such students to suddenly take high-stakes exams on computers is not only unrealistic but also deeply unjust. It is like asking someone to run a marathon without shoes.
Universities Are Struggling—What About Secondary Schools?
Even our universities, with better resources, are not fully ready for digital assessments. Many Nigerian campuses still lack reliable internet, updated equipment, and sufficient technical support staff. If tertiary institutions are struggling, what hope do secondary schools have—especially those where students sit on the floor due to a lack of chairs?
Reform Before Radical Change
Nigeria must embrace technology in education, but it must do so carefully and with compassion. The path forward is not to throw millions of students into a system they are unprepared for, but to build capacity gradually. This means investing first in the basics: stable electricity, affordable internet, functioning classrooms, and school feeding programs. It means providing computer literacy training for teachers and students, not as an afterthought but as part of everyday learning.
Pilot projects in selected schools could serve as test runs, with gradual expansion as infrastructure improves. In this way, Nigeria can modernize without sacrificing equity.
A Call for Caution
Rushing into computer-based WAEC and NECO examinations without addressing hunger, transportation struggles, poverty, and digital illiteracy would not modernize our education system—it would shatter it. Students could fail not because they lack intelligence or preparation, but because the system stacked the odds against them. That is not progress. That is injustice.
Before policymakers make this leap, they must pause and ask: Can a hungry child with no electricity at home truly be expected to compete on equal terms with a student who practices daily in a computer lab? Until the honest answer is “yes,” Nigeria is not ready.
Modernization is important, but fairness is more important. Reform must come before radical change. That is the only way to build an education system that is both digital and just.
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Opinion