The National Examinations Council (NECO) has launched a result verification and confirmation portal, called NECO e-Verify as part initiative to tackle the forgery of the council’s certificate.

The NECO e-Verify, according to the Council 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.

The Federal Government has accordingly directed heads of tertiary education institutions to deploy the NECO e-Verify platform for verification of results of admission-seeking candidates that sat for the National Examinations Council Senior School Certificate Examination.

Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr David Andrew Adejo, spoke during the unveiling of the NECO e-Verify platform on Thursday in Abuja.

Adejo, who expressed delight that NECO is ensuring its activities is aligning with global best practices, said the platform would go a long way in fishing out fake results, especially during the admission process.

“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 exam.”

Registrar of NECO, Professor Dantani Wushishi, speaking at the official launch of the platform at the National Universities Commission (NUC), Abuja, noted that the introduction of the NECO e-Verify was due to the growing need for verification and confirmation of results by institutions both home and abroad.

While stressing that the Council has been inundated with requests for certificate and results verification, disclosed that from available records, there were requests for verification and confirmation of results from 64 institutions across 37 countries over a two-year period (2020-2022).

He noted that before now, all requests for verification and confirmation of results were routed through the Council’s headquarters in Minna, “which took a long time to process.”

The Registrar added that the result verification is an important process that helps to ensure the accuracy of academic credentials.

He said: “Due to the growing need for verification and confirmation of results by institutions both
home and abroad, the Council decided that now was the best time to introduce the e-Verify platform.

“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 (2020-2022).

“Similarly, we have such requests from 72 institutions in Nigeria within the same period-this is besides requests from individuals which are numerous,” he stated.

Wushishi said it was an indisputable fact that academic institutions and employers of labour, among other agencies, rely on verification of results to help them select the best prospective students for admission and employment purposes.

He said: “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.

He listed reasons why verifying a candidate’s result is important.

According to him, the benefits include increased confidence, risk reduction and improved efficiency.

The portal, he said, would give institutions and employers more confidence in admitting and hiring the most qualified candidates “especially in today’s world of technology where result forgery is easiest as such it is important to verify students and employees credentials for some studies and positions to ensure that the institutions/establishments successfully meet their goals.”

Speaking further, Wushishi said: “Admitting/hiring unqualified persons can lead to a number of risks such as poor academic performance, decreased productivity, low morale and when fraudulent behaviors that can retard the progress of the institution and businesses result in verification helps to reduce these risks by ensuring that only qualified candidates are admitted and hired.

“With proper verification of candidate’s 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. This also places universities and other tertiary institutions on a good pedestal as candidates with questionable results would not dare to apply for admission

“It is against this backdrop that the National Examinations Council, as part of its efforts in meeting global standards, has found it necessary to deploy cutting-edge technology to improve candidates’ experiences as they seek to advance their educational pursuit. With a delightful heart and deep sense of responsibility therefore, we are pleased to present to you, our esteemed stakeholders, the NECO e-Verify Result Verification/Confirmation System.

“This enviable feat, no doubt, will bring a great deal of relief to millions of our candidates, educational institutions and other stakeholders. Please join me as I take you through the workings of the NECO e-Verify platform.”

The House of Representatives has warned public tertiary institutions in the country not to take advantage of the Students Loans and access to Higher Education in Nigeria Act to increase their tuition fees.

This followed the adoption of a motion by Terseer Ugbor (APC-Benue) at plenary on Thursday in Abuja.

The House also resolved to convene a Legislative summit on student loans and access to higher education with all stakeholders in the education sector.

Moving the motion, Ugbor said that financial support from family members and relatives was often considered a traditional source for funding higher education globally.

He said in the past 60 years, such funding indicated that governments in both developed and developing countries had put in place various student loan and educational credit schemes to enable students to borrow towards the funding of higher education.

According to him, the use of Students Loans and Educational Credit Schemes in most countries of the world is often justified on the grounds that it guarantees greater access to higher education for less privileged citizens.

He said it was further predicated on the notion that education remained an investment in human capital which in turn would promote individual development, economic growth and national productivity.

He said, “after several years of unsuccessful attempts by successive administrations to introduce students loans, scholarships and other educational credit schemes, the 9th National Assembly passed the Students Loans Bill”.

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He said it was recently signed into law by President Bola Tinubu to provide the legal and institutional framework for the implementation of a Students Loan Scheme in the country.

He said the objectives and intention of the Students Loans were patriotic and would impact positive access to higher education in Nigeria, especially among the underprivileged citizens.

He, however, said that there were several critical omissions and identifiable bottlenecks that would frustrate the successful implementation of the Act.

This, according to him, is if immediate further legislative action was not taken to ensure its efficient implementation.

He said there was an urgent need to convene a legislative summit with all key stakeholders to develop a strategy to ensure the smooth implementation of the Act for the benefit of indigent Nigerian students. (NAN)