My Thoughts On The WAEC Introducing CBT For WASSCE Like UTME -By Raji Usman Amao

I will like to pinpoint out some important issues before I proceed.

1. How can they reform our educational sector that had already crumbled down?

2. How can we utilize the use of CBT to write WAEC exams?

3. Are we fully ready to imbibe technology in the country?

4. Nigeria being an underdeveloped country still crawling to meet up basic needs and projects, can they invest on it to make changes in our educational sector?

5. Can we all adapt to the changes that is evolving round the world?

This five fundamental questions needs to be answered before we think of introducing the use of CBT to write WAEC exams in Nigeria.

Invariably, the use of CBT to write WAEC exams is an innovative ideas because nowadays the world is already going into digital world and fast growing countries are adapting to it and if we to have the curioucity to accept change in our educational sector that needs total overhauling and reformation will bring in an easy access to education to make it enticing to be educated as a citizens.

What we don’t get right is that , we are allergic to changes unless otherwise in this country. All this innovative ideas should be deploy to our educational sector before we thinks of what’s the next steps to take as to move forward and invest heavily on educational system of Nigeria because it serves as bedrock of a nation or countries to move progressively in their dealings.

The use of CBT will curbs the malpractice that’s hampering the transparency in the exams, it will cost you to manage your time effectively unlike manual writing that will exhaust your precious time. All this will factored down to the priority we set up on the educational system in Nigeria and what we want is practicalization of theory we are trying to imbibe in this country. We have the likes of USA, UK, China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Singapore, Ohio, UAE and others are one fastest growing and most developed countries all over the world, because the ideas they used is quite executory in nature so as to foster the even development they want for their country ranging from education, mining, technology, defence and currency are making them stands out among others known as *Primus Interpares*, and that’s why you see them adapting to changes of the world and environment as the world moves.

But, in the case of African continent we woefully failed to adapt to technological changes happening in the world right now, let’s take for instance, the Minister of Education in Nigeria introduce the use of CBT to write WAEC exams in Nigeria and it appears that out of 200 students in a school 80 of them are computer literate or oriented as we know while the rest doesn’t have the knowledge (computer literate). You see that there will be problem cause the other will not even comprehend to what is happening if to use it in their school.

There are good sides of using CBT to write WAEC exams in Nigeria and also side effects of it as follows:

Merit side of it are:
– It will curb examination malpractice
– It will enhance the level of education from manual to digital world.
– It will also enhance the growth of technological mindset towards
– It erase theory of essay that is time consuming but place priority on the theory aspect.
– It reduce time consuming and embrace time management.
– It opens the minds of Nigerian students from the primary school, secondary school and tertiary institutions to be computer literate and oriented to make it easier and accessible to them all.

While the Demerit side are:
– It breeds for manipulation of results after the exams at all levels
– It also outlived those that are not properly trained to misuse
– It’s short time span
– There will be dysfunctional of the systems if they are not properly taken care of.
– Short and inexperienced computer personnel might lead to some candidates will not be able to meet up.
– The numbers of CBT centres are not up to the expectant knowledge will cause unnecessary delays in their exams.
– Shortage of power supply in the country (unstable power supply).

Lastly, if Nigeria wants to adopt the use of CBT to write WAEC exams we need to do total overhauling and reformation of our educational system in Nigeria and after that we the lawmakers will now call for repealing of the *EDUCATION ACT* to suit the current digital world as it is going and to meet up with others at the tops. Note that we cannot just come up with innovative ideas without following the steps highlighted above to move the country from collapsing its educational sector in Nigeria.

Raji Usman Amao is a legal writer cum analyst and can be reach via email rajiusman223@gmail.com