In response to the increasing cases of result forgery and the growing need for verification and confirmation of results by institutions and employees, the National Examination Council (NECO) has introduced a digitised result verification platform known as the ‘e-Verify Platform’.
The unveiling ceremony which was held in Abuja on Thursday, July 6, 2023, had in attendance heads of Agencies, Security Agencies, and Stakeholders in the Education sector.
NECO Registrar, Prof. Dantani Wushishi while speaking on the need for the digitised platform said, prior to this time, all requests for verification and/or Confirmation of results were routed through the Council’s Headquarters in Minna, which took a longer time to process.
Wushishi explained that, the Council decided to introduce the e-Verify Platform due to the growing need for verification and confirmation of results by institutions both home and abroad:
“From available records at our disposal, we have observed that there were requests for verification and confirmation of results from sixty-four (64) institutions across thirty-seven countries over a two-year period (2020-2022).
“Similarly, we have such requests from seventy-two institutions in Nigeria within the same period-this is besides requests from individuals which are numerous”.
He stated that it was an irrefutable fact that academic institutions and employers of labour, among other agencies, relied on verification of results to help them select the best prospective students for admission and employment purposes.
Therefore, “the ‘NECO e-Verify’ is 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 places respectively.
“Result verification is an important process that helps to ensure the accuracy of academic credentials. 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 qualification for further studies and specific job schedules”, he said.
The NECO Boss further listed some of the benefits of verifying candidates’ results to include, Increased Confidence in the abilities of the candidates, reduced Risk of Admitting/hiring unqualified persons, and Improved Efficiency of the organisation in which the candidates find themselves.
On her part, Deputy Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Sen. (Dr.) Akon Eyakenyi who lauded the new initiative stated that, “‘the software, NECO e-Verify is the product of good thinking and its implementation starting from today’s unveiling is a step in the right direction”.
Eyakenyi noted that, beyond making things easier for candidates and stakeholders, it would, hopefully, generate revenue and strengthen the financial base of NECO.
She further charged “NECO and other examination bodies in Nigeria to work towards full automation of the entire process of examination administration, also our schools and educational institutions should embrace e-learning”, the Deputy Governor said.
In the same vein, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr. David Adejo congratulated NECO for the efforts put in place in creating the platform, saying that, it was going to help stakeholders to assess their results and verify them anywhere they are across the globe.
This, Adejo acknowledged was faster and easier than the present tedious process.
Highlighting some of the advantages of e-Verify, the Permanent Secretary said, “this is another way of discouraging fraud and promoting excellence in our educational system”.
Also, “it would ensure that results presented to various educational institutions or used for other educational related purposes like employment are genuine and that the candidates presenting them are the rightful owners”.
