……WAEC’s 2026 Plan: A Recipe for Disaster? – Concerned Parent Raises Alarm
The Federal Ministry of Education’s recent announcement of a revised national curriculum and the plan by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to begin examining it from the 2026 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) has generated widespread concern among students, parents, and educators across Nigeria.
Among the plethora of reactions, Mr. Olanrewaju Akinola, a concerned parent from Lagos, noted the decision is ‘unfair, ill-timed, and a potential recipe for disaster’. He warned that the current SS 3 students who will take the WASSCE in the next six months are being unfairly disadvantaged, as they have not been taught the subjects they are now compelled to take under the new curriculum.
Mr. Akinola stressed that any external examination such as WASSCE and BECE based on the new curriculum should commence in 2028, when the present SS 1 and JS 1 students—who started under the new curriculum—will be in SS 3 and JS 3 respectively.
Buttressing concerns on the implications.
He explained that the new curriculum introduces subjects such as Citizenship and Heritage Studies and Digital Technologies while reducing more than 30 trade subjects to six broad practical areas. While these changes may be well-intentioned, Akinola described WAEC’s plan to implement them by 2026 as ill-conceived, unjust, and unworkable.
A major point of concern, he noted, is that students who never studied Digital Technologies in SS 1 and SS 2 will now be examined on it. Similarly, those who have been offering subjects like Tourism and Storekeeping since SS 1 are now being forced to switch to one of the six new trade areas.
“Moreover, students who have been offering certain subjects since SS 1 are now being told they can no longer take them in WASSCE. For instance, science students cannot take Economics, while business students who have been offering Government since SS 1 are being forced to take Marketing instead, even though they were never taught it,” Akinola stated.
He also raised questions about how schools are expected to provide continuous assessment (CA) scores from SS 1 to SS 3 for the newly introduced subjects, given that they were not previously taught.
Furthermore, Akinola advised WAEC and the Federal Ministry of Education to reconsider plans to make Computer-Based Testing (CBT) compulsory for WASSCE from 2026, citing inadequate infrastructure, poor accessibility, and logistical challenges. He warned that students—especially those in rural areas—would face serious difficulties traveling repeatedly to CBT centres, many of which may be far from their homes.
“Unlike JAMB, WAEC examinations are not just objective or a one-time two-hour test. They span several days and include practical components. Making CBT compulsory without proper infrastructure will only deepen the challenges faced by students and parents,” he cautioned, noting that there is also an extra burden; mentally, financially and otherwise, placed on the students in using CBT to take several examinations across several subjects.
Akinola recommended that the government must first set a clear timeframe to equip schools with the necessary ICT facilities to conduct CBT examinations on-site. This, he said, would eliminate the need for students to travel multiple times, reduce financial pressure on parents, and minimize logistical difficulties.
Akinola noted that the implementation of the plan in 2026 is “a recipe for disaster” and urged education authorities to act responsibly by deferring the examination of the new curriculum until 2028. He emphasised that the priority should be on ensuring students are adequately prepared and not unfairly disadvantaged by sudden policy shifts.
“The future of our children is at stake, and we must ensure they are not shortchanged by hasty and poorly planned reforms,” he said, calling on policy makers to urgently look into the issue while calling on other concerned stakeholders to join voices in engaging relevant educational policy makers to revise the decision in view of emerging concerns.
