The West African Examinations Council has extended the registration deadline for the 2026 Computer-Based West African Senior School Certificate Examination for school candidates by one day, pushing the closing date to Friday, March 13, 2026. The council announced the decision on Friday through a short post on its official X account.
“Here is to announce that the registration for the CB-WASSCE for school candidates, 2026 has been extended to Friday, March 13, 2026,” the post read.
The latest deadline shift appears connected to technical difficulties and high registration demand that have characterised the exercise since it opened in January, based on official updates from the council during that period.
The move toward computer-based testing for the WASSCE represents one of the most consequential structural changes to public examinations in West Africa since WAEC was established in 1952. For over seven decades, the WASSCE has been administered through a paper-based format that has remained largely unchanged in its mechanics, even as global examination practices evolved significantly. The examination has for long been the principal gateway through which millions of Nigerian secondary school graduates access tertiary education, and its credibility has, at various points, been tested by persistent concerns about malpractice, result manipulation, question paper leakages, and logistical failures in the administration of centre-based examinations across a vast and geographically diverse country.
Nigeria alone accounts for the largest share of WASSCE candidates among the five countries in which WAEC operates, the others being Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and The Gambia. The scale of the Nigerian candidacy, regularly numbering in the millions annually, has historically made the examination one of the most complex logistics undertakings in the country’s education calendar. Printing, distributing, securing, and retrieving millions of question papers and answer scripts across thousands of centres spread across 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory has consistently exposed the exercise to vulnerabilities that technology-based delivery is designed to reduce.
The CB-WASSCE initiative, which WAEC has been developing and piloting over a number of years, is intended to move this process onto a digital platform. Under the model, candidates will sit their examinations on computers at accredited CBT centres rather than with pen and paper, with questions delivered electronically and responses recorded directly into the system.
Head of the WAEC National Office, Dr. Amos Dangut, addressed the modalities of the transition during a sensitisation session held in Abuja for members of the National Assembly Committees on Education. The engagement was organised to brief lawmakers on the details of the CB-WASSCE and to secure legislative support for addressing implementation challenges.
According to Dangut, WAEC has adopted a phased approach to the transition, beginning with the gradual introduction of computer-based testing in certain subjects and starting with objective questions before progressively expanding the scope to include theory and practical components.
“This phased approach would allow schools, teachers, and students to adjust to the new system while also giving WAEC the opportunity to identify and resolve any technical or infrastructural bottlenecks,” he explained at the session.
Dangut disclosed that extensive consultations are ongoing with state governments, school proprietors, and education stakeholders to ensure that adequate CBT centres are established across the country. He added that WAEC is working in close coordination with the Federal Ministry of Education and relevant agencies to address challenges around electricity supply, internet connectivity, and the training of personnel who will manage examination centres.
The council has further committed to equity in the rollout, with Dangut reassuring lawmakers that candidates in rural and underserved communities will not face disadvantage relative to their urban counterparts when the new system becomes fully operational.
“When the new model is fully implemented in 2026, no candidate will be left out or disenfranchised due to inadequate access to technology or infrastructure,” Dangut stated, reflecting the assurance WAEC has publicly maintained in its official communications.
He noted that WAEC is mapping out CBT centres in each local government area across the country, a deliberate effort to minimise the distance that candidates would need to travel to access examination facilities. This approach, the council indicated, is also designed to reduce the cost burden on parents and guardians who would otherwise be required to fund long-distance travel to examination centres.
Dangut framed the CB-WASSCE transition not only as a logistical upgrade but as a necessary step toward strengthening the credibility and integrity of public examinations. He argued that the use of technology in examination delivery would substantially reduce the vulnerabilities that have historically undermined the WASSCE’s reputation.
He stated that with the use of technology, issues such as examination malpractice, logistical delays, and result processing challenges would be significantly minimised. This assertion speaks to a long-standing public concern in Nigeria, where examination malpractice at the secondary school level has at various times been described by educators, policymakers, and civil society groups as a systemic problem. High-profile cases of question paper leakages, impersonation of candidates, and organised cheating syndicates operating within and around examination centres have drawn repeated condemnation and sparked debates about the reliability of public examination results as a true measure of academic competence.
The National Examination Ethics Marshals Alliance and similar bodies have for years advocated for structural interventions to curb malpractice, and the shift to computer-based testing is widely regarded within education circles as among the most promising of such interventions. Digital delivery allows for question randomisation, meaning that no two candidates in the same centre are likely to receive their questions in the same order, and reduces the scope for mass copying or the circulation of predetermined answers.
Result processing under the digital model is also considerably faster, removing the lengthy period between examination completion and result release that has characterised the paper-based system and that has, at times, been a source of anxiety for candidates and institutions awaiting results for admission purposes.
The most significant challenge facing WAEC’s transition, as acknowledged by Dangut himself, is infrastructure. Nigeria’s digital infrastructure remains uneven, with significant disparities in internet access, computer availability, and reliable electricity supply between urban and rural areas. The National Bureau of Statistics and various telecommunications sector reports have consistently shown that broadband penetration in rural Nigeria lags considerably behind urban centres, and that power supply in many local government areas is insufficient to support the sustained operation of computer systems during examination sessions.
WAEC’s commitment to mapping CBT centres across all local government areas is ambitious. Nigeria has 774 local government areas, many of which are in geographically remote locations with limited access to the grid and poor telecommunications infrastructure. The council’s assertion that it is working with government agencies to ensure stable electricity and internet provision at these centres will need to translate into concrete, funded, and verifiable outcomes if the promise of an inclusive CB-WASSCE is to be realised.
Dangut’s appeal to lawmakers for budgetary provisions and oversight mechanisms reflects an awareness that the infrastructure challenge requires government investment beyond what WAEC can independently mobilise. He urged legislators to support the initiative by ensuring that the financial and regulatory frameworks required for smooth implementation are firmly in place.
The current registration extension, minor as it may appear, offers a small but telling illustration of the pressures involved. Technical glitches and high demand creating difficulties at the registration stage suggest that even the front-end processes of the digital examination system still require refinement before the examination itself is administered to hundreds of thousands of candidates simultaneously.
