ABOUT NECO SENIOR SCHOOL CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION (INTERNAL)

 

This is the examination taken by candidates in their last stage of Secondary School Education. The SSCE is in two categories. One is for candidates in the third and final year of their senior secondary education and it is called SSCE Internal while the Second is SSCE External and is for candidates not in the School system, i.e. Private Candidates.

The SSCE internal has seventy-six subjects which are grouped into the following six categories.
1. Compulsory Cross-Cutting Subjects
2. Science and Mathematics
3. Technology
4. Humanities
5. Business Studies and
6. Trade/Entrepreneurship.

NOTE: All candidates must offer the 4 cross-cutting compulsory subjects. Candidates are to offer 3-4 subjects from their area of specialization and 1 elective outside their field of specialization provided the total number of subjects is not more than nine (9). The minimum number of subjects is eight (8)

NECO REGISTRATION PROCEDURE & GUIDELINES FOR THE 2023 JUNE/JULY SENIOR SCHOOL CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION (SSCE)

This is to inform you that the same new registration procedure introduced by the Council last year is to be used for  June/July Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE). In view of the foregoing, please find below the comprehensive procedure & guidelines for the  June/July SSCE.

You are requested to painstakingly read through, understand and comply with the requirements therein. Do not hesitate to ask questions or seek for explanation on any aspect of the new registration procedure which you may not have clearly understood.

Please note that you are expected to read and clearly understand this registration procedure & guidelines before embarking on the registration exercise. This correspondence is strictly for all

Principals and Commandants of Command /Airforce/Police Secondary Schools to read and implement.

A. ELIGIBILITY FOR REGISTRATION:

Principals/Commandants of schools are hereby informed that only candidates in their final year of Senior Secondary School i.e. (SS3) are eligible for registration. For the avoidance of doubt, the 2023 June/July SSCE is meant for only school-based candidates in Nigeria and overseas. It is not meant for private candidates. Principals/Commandants of schools and States Ministries of Education should endeavor to enforce the eligibility condition.

B. REGISTRATION PROCEDURE:

The following are the registration procedures for Principals/Commandants of schools presenting bona-fide candidates for  June/July SSCE.

The  June/July SSCE registration will be both OFFLINE and ONLINE. There is no more manual registration. The manual registration entries of candidates have been replaced with offline entries of candidates’ registration data.

Schools (centres) are to register their candidates using the offline application before logging online to the NECO registration portal www.neco.gov.ng to effect payment of registration and other mandatory fees before uploading the candidates’ data.
.

OFFLINE REGISTRATION 

Schools are to uninstall the previous SSCE offline application from their computer systems and install the 2023 SSCE offline application. Schools are to make all entries of their candidates’ bio-data and biometric data completely offline, using the 2023 SSCE offline registration application supplied in a recordable CD/DVD along with this registration guidelines.

Inside the CD/DVD, there is a copy of 2023 SSCE offline application and a soft copy of the user manual on the step-by-step offline and online registration procedure. The offline registration application could also be downloaded from the Council’s website www.neco.gov.ng.

Schools are to print the user manual and strictly follow the registration procedure to successfully register candidates.

The user manual can also be saved to a computer system from the offline application or downloaded from the Council’s website. Ensure that all prospective Candidates are registered offline, such that as they pay, they could be uploaded online progressively.

Please note that a candidate is only registered if his/her offline entries are uploaded online to obtain a registration number. Online upload is only possible upon payment of registration fees.

OFFLINE VALIDATION 

After successful offline registration, schools are to do the offline validation before payment could be made.

Validation of registration data has been separated from the third year Continuous Assessment (CA3). Validation of candidates is to be carried out during the offline registration before payment and upload of the corrected data online.

Schools are no longer to fill Validation Lists manually.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE COUNCIL IS NOT LIABLE FOR REGISTRATION ERRORS. ALL REGISTRATION ERRORS MUST BE CORRECTED DURING THE VALIDATION PROCESS BEFORE UPLOADING THE REGISTRATION ONLINE. 

Correction of name is only limited to the results of years 2000 to 2018. However, with effect from 2019, all corrections of Name, Picture, Date of Birth, Sex, Subject and so on, are done during the offline validation process before uploading the registration data online.

PROCEDURE FOR OFFLINE VALIDATION

Upon completion of the offline registration, schools are to export and print the offline photocards of all the candidates from the offline application and issue to each candidate to confirm that his/her Picture, Name, State, LGA, Date of Birth, Sex and the Subjects he/she wishes to sit for are all correct.
Where errors are discovered, candidates should correct such errors on the photocard and sign in theappropriate column.

Where there are no errors, Candidates should just sign the appropriate column.

All signed photocards are to be returned to the person doing the registration to enter all corrections in the offline application. Note that all corrections must be done offline.

The Council is not liable for any registration errors committed by schools during registration and will only entertain nonvalidation after schools have uploaded their entries online upon payment of fine.

Please note that any school that requests for correction of Name, Picture, Date of Birth, Sex or Subject is deemed to have indulged in “NON-VALIDATION”.

The penalty fee for non-validation is N5,000.00 per candidate irrespective of the nature of non-validation. After validation, a separate folder where the Validation Documents (Validation List, Candidates’ Photocards, Entry Schedule and Subject Analysis) are to be exported and saved should be created either on the computer in which the offline registration application is installed, or in any other external storage device.

See User Manual on “How to export Validation Documents” (Validation List, Candidates’ Photocards, Entry Schedule and Subject Analysis).

The exported validation list is to be printed and given to candidates to further confirm that all the corrections they made on their photocards (if any) have been duly effected.

Where Candidates discover on the Validation List that the errors they made were not effected, they should call the attention of the person doing the registration to effect the corrections in the offline application, discard the validation list and export the corrected copy of the Validation list before they append their signatures against their respective names.

The signed offline validation list is one of the documents to be returned to respective NECO State offices along with other Validation documents.

CENTER ACTIVATION

Each School (Center) must be activated by the NECO State Officer of each respective State & FCT before payment and upload could be possible.

Schools are to return the Validation Documents to their respective State Officers, who would thereafter, activate the School for payment and upload to conclude the registration.

The validation Documents to be returned to NECO State Offices before activation are:
i. Validation List
ii. Candidates’ signed Photocards
iii. Entry Schedule duly endorsed by the State Ministry of Education
iv. Subject Analysis

 

PAYMENT AND UPLOAD

As soon as a center is activated, schools are to connect to the internet and login to www.neco.gov.ng with their center number, username and password to make payment online.

As soon as payment is successful, schools are to launch the offline application while the system is still connected to the internet and login to the upload page by clicking the “check payment” button (see user manual) and selecting the candidates that paid and uploading them accordingly.

PAYMENT PROCEDURE

All payments should strictly be made through the NECO portal. Upon successful payment, registration quota is allocated according to the amount paid into the NECO TSA. After the quota is allocated, schools can select the individual candidates to pay for (if the payment is not for all candidates) by checking the selection boxes against each candidate’s name or clicking the “select all” box to select the entire candidates, if the payment is for all the candidates.

Note that when paying in installments, schools should pay for at least 20 candidates at a time to avoid being wrongly surcharged for unviable centre fee.

After successful payment, a quota is allocated and the payment invoice is sent to the administrator’s email address. Schools can also print their payment invoice from the transaction history in their school profile and submit a copy to the NECO State Office along with the final Validation list that carries Candidates’ registration numbers.

The allocated quota would be used to upload and register candidates. After successful upload, registration numbers are automatically assigned to each registered candidate on both the final photocard and the final validation list.

Immediately after completion of the registration, schools should print the final validation list and give all candidates to sign against their respective names.

The payment invoice and the signed final validation list should be endorsed by the School Principal/Commandant before submission to NECO State office.

The final photocards that bear the candidates’ registration numbers are to be used for admission of candidates into the examination hall (s), as well as for candidates’ biometric verification exercise during the examination.

MINIMUM NUMBER OF CANDIDATES 

The minimum number of candidates to be registered by a school is 20 (twenty) Any school registering less than twenty candidates is deemed unviable and as such shall pay unviable centre fee of Forty Thousand Naira (N40,000) only if they wish to write the examination in their schools.

i. Entry Schedules and Customized CD:
School Principals/Commandants are to collect Entry Schedules, Subjects’ Analysis form and Customized CD-ROM for their SS3 Candidates from NECO Offices in their respective States. The collected CD is usable for one year registration period, and it’s not transferable.

ii. Installation of the Software and Registration:
Schools shall install the customized registration software on their internet enabled laptop/Desktop and thereafter, commence registration and biometrics information of all candidates presented for SSCE registration.

iii. Registration, Bio-Data Capture and Submission

NOTE:
In order to upload your candidates’ data to the NECO portal and obtain examination numbers, all centres must be registered create their online account log in and purchase tokens for their candidates (scratch cards are no longer used) have a minimum of 20 candidates

The SSCE Internal offline and online applications are a suite of software that enable schools otherwise known as centers; register their candidates, make payments – (online app), manage their candidate information, for the SSCE internal (Jun/Jul) Examination.

Note:

  • Center must have been registered and in the database.
  • The URL will be provided only after centers have submitted validation list to NECO.
  • With the SSCE (Internal) Examination Portal, you can perform these task below:
  • Update Center information by creating an admin account
  • Login and Make payments
  • Upload Candidate information and generate exam number
  • Upload CA 3

PROCEDURE FOR UPLOAD OF CANDIDATES’ DATA ONLINE

The procedure for upload of Candidates’ data online is as follows:
➢ Connect your computer to the internet;
➢ Launch the offline application;
➢ Click on “Payment and Upload” button;
➢ Click on “check Payment” button
➢ Enter your administrator login details to login;
➢ Select and Upload Candidates accordingly.

Updating Centre Information for SSCE Internal

Centre are required to update their information and create a CENTRE ADMIN account which it will use to manage all their candidate record by completing the process in the URL.

NECO has uploaded a list of Centres to the online system to be updated with their Centre Admin information.

To update a Centre information;

Step 1.
Go to internalexams.neco.gov.ng/updatecentre enter your Centre Number/Code and select your exam type.

Step 2

  • Click on Display Centre Info, you Centre information will be displayed.

Step 3

  • Enter your Center Admin Information to update your center info

Step 4
Verification email will be sent to your registered email, click it to verify email and set new password for your account

Step 5

  • Sign in with Centre Number/Code and new password to login to your account

 

HOW TO UPLOAD CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT (CA) 3

As part of the requirements for the SSCE (Internal), all schools (centres) are to submit their candidates’ third year continuous assessment scores (CA3).

3RD YEAR CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT SCORES (CA3) 

The period for CA 3 entries by schools is from 12th July – 15th September. Schools should ensure that they use the offline application to make entries for CA3, within the stipulated period.

Procedure for CA3 entry and upload 
✓ Connect to the internet
✓ Launch the offline application
✓ Click on Third Year CA menu
✓ Check time for CA3 Upload
✓ Select the Candidate
✓ Make entries for CA 3
✓ Login with your username and password to upload CA 3

Any school that fails to upload the CA3 within the stipulated period stated above, will have to pay a late submission fee of Twenty-five Thousand Naira (N25,000.00) only. Any school that fails to upload CA 3 will not have results until they upload.

NB: Any school still having candidates (partial or full) without CA3 for egistration should endeavour to pay the late submission penalty fee of Twenty-five Thousand Naira (N25,000.00) only for the specific year and also upload the CA3 immediately as this is why your candidates are yet to receive their results.

SEE ALSO: WASSCE for School Candidates Result Checker.

C. REGISTRATION FEES

Details of the Examination fees and other registration materials are as follows:
a. Registration fee for the 2023 June/July SSCE is N17,800.00 only per candidate.
b. Photo album is N1,700.00 per pair,
c. 4-figure table is N250.00 per copy,
d. Syllabus is N1,500.00 per copy
e. Unviable Centre fee is N50,000.00
f. Late Registration attracts a Penalty of additional N2,000.00 per candidate
g. Note that Stamp Duty, Service and Remita charges apply

D. PHOTO ALBUMS

Manual photo albums have been replaced with electronic photo albums. Schools will NO LONGER prepare photo albums manually and submit to NECO for stamping.

The Council would print a pair of photo album purchased by you, endorse both copies and send a copy to your school.

a) The purchased Photo Albums are in pairs.  Each photo album has provision for 171 candidates.

A page has provision for 9 candidates and there are 19 pages.

A pair of photo album costs One Thousand Seven Hundred Naira (N1,700) only

E. NEW SYLLABUS AND FOUR FIGURE TABLE 

The new syllabus for NECO SSCE is available at the cost of One Thousand Five Hundred Naira (N1,500) and each school is advised to have at least four copies. Furthermore, each candidate is to obtain a copy of NECO 4- figure tables at the cost of Two Hundred and Fifty Naira (N250.00) only each.