The National Examinations Council (NECO) has launched a result verification and confirmation portal, called NECO e-Verify.
The council’s Registrar, Prof. Dantani Wushishi, described the NECO e-verify as an online result verification solution that guarantees instant authentication of academic and basic information about prospective candidates for admission and employment into academic institutions and work.
The registrar spoke during the unveiling of the portal yesterday in Abuja.
This happened as the Federal Government directed heads of tertiary education institutions to deploy the platform for the verification of results of admission-seeking candidates that sat for NECO’s Senior School Certificate.
The NECO registrar recalled that hitherto, all requests for verification and confirmation of results were routed through the council’s headquarters in Minna, the Niger State capital, saying this took a longer time to process.
He said result verification is an important process that helps to ensure the accuracy of academic credentials.
Wushishi said: “From available records at our disposal, we have observed that there were requests for verification and confirmation of results from 64 institutions across 37 countries over a two-year period, from 2020 to 2022.”
He added that NECO had such requests from 72 institutions in Nigeria within the same period, besides the requests from individuals, which he described as numerous.
The NECO boss said academic institutions and employers of labour, among others, rely on verification of results to help them select the best prospective students for admission and employment purposes.
He added: “By verifying the authenticity of candidates’ results, academic institutions and employers will be more confident that they are admitting and hiring persons who have the required qualifications for further studies and specific job schedules.”
On the importance of verifying candidates’ results, Wushishi noted that the benefits include increased confidence, risk reduction and improved efficiency.
The portal, he said, would give institutions and employers more confidence of admitting and hiring the most qualified candidates “especially in today’s world of technology where result forgery is easiest”.
Wushishi added: “It is important to verify students’ and employees’ credentials for some studies and positions to ensure that the institutions/establishments successfully meet their goals.
“With proper verification of candidates’ results, institutions and businesses will run more efficiently as they will be able to recruit the best applicants that are capable of learning faster and employees that can carry out their duties without or with minimal supervision.”
The Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Education, David Adejo, praised NECO for ensuring that its activities aligned with global best practices.
He said: “Arising from the fact that tertiary institutions must verify and confirm results of candidates to be admitted into their schools, the need for recertification for results becomes very necessary.
“All vice chancellors of universities, rectors of polytechnics, provosts of colleges of education, head of other tertiary institutions, including innovation enterprises institutions are, therefore, mandated to make use of NECO e-Verify software for verifying all candidates that will be admitted who sat in NECO examinations.”
