In 2024, WAEC’s worst results in over a decade hit like a sucker punch: pass rates dropped from 79.8% in 2023 to just 72.1% by 2024. The culprit? WAEC blamed its newly rolled-out Computer Based Testing (CBT) regime and a question-serialisation method intended to curb cheating. Instead, it exposed deeper fractures in Nigeria’s educational system.
What should have been a digital upgrade became a broader educational failure. Here’s a careful breakdown of how CBT may be harming more than helping Nigeria’s students—and why the system risks collapsing if reforms aren’t immediately addressed.
1. Serialisation Exposed, Not Eliminated Cheating
WAEC introduced serialized objective papers—assigning each candidate a different version to fight collusion.
But it backfired: many students still copied answers, scoring identical marks despite different question sets.
Officials concluded copying had worsened post-serialisation, dragging down overall grades in English, Maths, Biology, and Economics.
The result? Skewed results, identical wrong answers, and trust shattered in objective testing.
2. Nigeria Wasn’t Ready: Digital Gaps In Training And Infrastructure
Experts repeatedly warned that Nigeria lacked the digital infrastructure for a full CBT rollout by 2026.
Teachers, exam centers, and students remain unprepared—especially in rural states where computer skills are rare and electricity is unreliable. The hurried timetable has critics calling it impractical.
Fact: Over 50% of public secondary schools lack basic computer labs. So how did WAEC proceed?
3. Regional Divide: Northern States At Greater Risk
The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum sounded the alarm early, arguing that CBT would hit students in Zamfara, Jigawa, Taraba, Adamawa, Nasarawa, and Plateau the hardest. Their evidence? Students without computer literacy or exam practice infrastructure simply failed at higher rates.
This systemic inequality shows that technology without accessibility only deepens failure.
4. CBT’s Glitches Became Student Traumas
Imagine writing an exam and your computer freezes. Or losing power and losing time.
Many students faced such technical breakdowns—from software bugs to server crashes. Even WAEC’s head admitted the rushed shift increased exam-day stress and disrupted normal operations.
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No child should fail because WAEC forgot to test-run systems in rural Nigeria.
5. Cut-and-Paste Mentality: Objective Over Critical Thinking
CBT currently handles only multiple-choice questions, not essays. This shift reinforces rote guessing over real understanding, encouraging slip-and-tap answers over coherent reasoning.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s education system continues to emphasize memorisation rather than analytical skills—a mismatch that CBT magnifies.
A generation is now shaped to click, not think.
What Needs To Change—Right Now
* Introduce hybrid options: candidates choose paper or CBT based on readiness.
* Rollout pilot phases first—select centres with proven infrastructure.
* Boost digital literacy: train teachers, provide computer labs, use solar backup.
* Extend timelines: push full CBT to 2027–28 to ensure smooth transition.
* Re-evaluate serialisation effectiveness: cheating evolves, stake deeper anti-cheat strategies.
Smart Strategy Without Support Is Suicide
Adopting CBT is not the crime—it’s the rash, under-prepared roll-out that’s causing disaster.
CBT should elevate fairness and efficiency. Instead, it has increased inequity, punished students from underserved areas, encouraged rote guessing, and failed to eliminate malpractice.
WAEC’s result collapse is a symptom of a system asleep at the wheel—and the 2026 CBT mandate may only amplify failure.
Without real infrastructure and stakeholder buy-in, Nigeria risks digitalising illusions—not education.
