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WAEC Unveils ‘EDUSTAT’ an Innovative Educational Statistics Platform
West African Examinations Council, WAEC, has launched an Educational Statistics platform (EDUSTAT), designed to ease access to quality data and insights in the educational sector.
This innovation was done to take the edge off the manual access to data by stakeholders, improve the quality of service delivery and generate more revenue for the Council.
Sidmach Technologies, Africa’s emerging ICT giant provided the technical support and expertise in the development and design of the platform.
Mr. Areghan, Head of the national office West African Examinations Council, WAEC Nigeria, speaking during the launch said that stakeholders do not need to write the body regarding any inquiry, as all information from the body can now be accessed anywhere in the world digitally with a little token.
He noted that the council is leveraging technology, detailed data analysis and insights, to establish itself as a leading light in the educational sector and a future brand by introducing this Educational Statistical Platform.
According to him, “As you all know, the new world is smarter and more instant. The access to statistical data analysis, its collation, interpretation and presentation cannot be different. Businesses and organizations alike need every edge and advantage they can get to improve service delivery, thanks to the rapidly changing markets, economic uncertainties, shifting political landscape, customer-focus, and even the global Pandemic, which have made statistical analysis more sought-after by researchers, for fact analysis and findings.
“The West African Examinations Council is committed to its mission of remaining Africa’s foremost examining body, providing qualitative and reliable educational assessment, encouraging academic and moral excellence, and promoting sustainable human resource development and international cooperation.
“As an examining body that has survived the centrifugal forces of the colonial era and remains the foremost examining body in the West African Sub-region, with a vast and rich database, it has become expedient to completely migrate from the manual way of interpreting data to a more sophisticated and advanced mode of data interpretation through technology.
Mr. Patrick Areghan blamed lack of quality data, inconsistencies and multiple data copies in education as reasons for false facts resulting in bad decisions-making and loss of revenue.
“WAEC identified these issues and sought to solve the problem through its new EDUSTAT product, which addresses poor infrastructure and the manual process of assessing educational insights and statistics”, he added.
This product according to him, “is borne out of the desire to provide stakeholders, such as researchers, funding agencies, government institutions, school administrators and parents with a reliable platform that provides educational insights collected from multiple sources and delivered in simplified graphs, summaries, and dashboards which help them enhance their decisions.
“The core benefit of EDUSTAT platform is access to a comprehensive interactive Web Report.
“Also, the platform offers detailed and smart statistical insights into education and assessment dynamics, using historical and current data to provide detailed intelligence for stakeholders across the globe, in a smart and easily accessible manner.
“One of the key features of this platform is its ability to analyze data in real-time.
“This means that educators can get immediate feedback on how their students are performing, enabling them to adjust their teaching strategies as needed. Additionally, the platform is designed to be user-friendly and customizable, allowing educators to tailor it to their specific needs and preferences.
“As the name implies, EDUSTAT is an innovative educational statistics platform designed to leverage WAEC’s comprehensive and reliable database of over 50 million candidates who have been tested over the years.
“This platform results from years of research, development, and collaboration, and we are confident that it will revolutionize how data is accessed.
“For schools, the platform offers student-level data on academic performance, attendance, and demographic information. This data can be used to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses within the school and informed decisions about how to improve student outcomes.
“Institutions such as universities and colleges can also benefit from the platform by accessing data on enrollment and academic performance of their students. This information can be used to identify areas where additional resources are needed to support students and improve overall performance,” he concluded.
Also speaking, Mr. Chijioke Ekeh, Managing Director of Sidmach Technologies Nig. Limited, applauded the management of the West African examinations body for their foresight in identifying the need to democratize education data for the benefit of the regional education sector and economies at large.
He pledged Sidmach’s continued support to achieve greater heights in the sector.
During a demo session, Mr. Akintunde Opawole, the Product Manager at Sidmach Technologies Nigeria Limited, said EDUSTAT offers a wide range of features that will benefit the user.
He collaborated on the statement by Mr. Areghan’s that the artificial intelligence-driven platform provides, for instance Government agencies, detailed statistics on student enrollment, graduation rates, and academic performance at various levels of government.
He added that this platform will help policy makers make data-driven decisions about education policy, funding, and program design.
MTN Nigeria’s commitment to digital innovation took center stage at MarkHack 4.0, the annual marketing and technology conference held at Landmark Event Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos, on Friday, May 23, 2025, with the theme ‘Experience Ignited: Fueling the Customer’s Journey’.
L-R: Akinbulejo Onabolu, Head, Enterprise Segment, MTN Nigeria; Eneyi Obi, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Rise; Tobi Olanisimi, Marketing Manager, AB InBev; Martha Kayode, Marketing Head, PZ Cussonz; Sulaiman Shaibu, CEO, BFT Consulting Service and Daniel Adeyemi, Managing Editor, Condia Business at the MarkHack 4.0 Conference held at the Landmark Event Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos on Friday, May 23, 2025.
In a celebration of innovation, technology, and storytelling, the company also took home the award for Best Use of Data in a Marketing Campaign at the Nigeria MarTech (MarkHack 4.0) Awards Night. This award recognizes brands that have successfully transformed data into compelling narratives and actionable insights to meaningfully engage their audiences.
Akinbulejo Onabolu, Senior Manager, Segment Management, Enterprise Business at MTN, joined a panel to discuss the power of immersive technologies on consumer behaviour. Drawing from MTN’s launch of its 5G Digital Experience Centre in Abuja last year, Onabolu highlighted the rapid evolution of immersive technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) stating “Our 5G centre is a sandbox for our customers to come and see how technology can shape things. At the launch event, we unveiled a smart city to customers, clients and dignitaries in attendance, with gaming and other tech experiences.”
On the intersection of data, AR and VR, he added: “Co-creating with MTN takes our minds to a platform where different partners, companies and creators can bring their buildings, products and businesses for people to see via augmented reality and connectivity, just swiping through and following through that journey.
“As a part of impacting our customer’s lives, a few years ago, we also played around with the Metaverse and we ended up creating some of our back-office processes with some of our customer journeys on augmented reality and virtual reality such that a customer somewhere can engage with a virtual agent to solve real life problems and integrating that back into our operating systems. As an organization, at a lot of our events, you will find a lot of AR and VR experiences.”
Speaking on how MTN is embedding immersive technology into its day-to-day operations, he explained that the company is prioritizing both internal capability development and external engagement. “85% of our organization has undergone extensive training on AI and that already is a great addition to our daily lives. We’re using it to do things differently, developing user journeys and brainstorming different things. In terms of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, we are working with organizations to develop training programs which we use internally.”
He described the bases for this tech as stable connectivity, high bandwidth, high speed and low latency. “Over the past year, we’ve doubled our 5G capacity across the entire country. Wherever you are, you’ll probably start to pick up 5G. With our FibreX service, we’re going way beyond connectivity to create the systems and platforms to support the ecosystem, AR and VR. In addition to this, we’re also engaging regulatory systems to start to tease this out and build the proper governance.”
The session, moderated by Daniel Adeyemi, Managing Editor at Condia Business, also featured insights from leaders in FMCG, consulting, and global marketing, all underscoring the transformative potential of immersive technologies for Africa’s future.
MTN Nigeria has announced a massive capital expenditure (CAPEX) drive for 2025, nearly doubling its investment to almost 900 billion Naira, as it seeks to significantly enhance network service quality in major cities like Lagos and Abuja and extend improvements to other areas.
Karl Toriola
This financial commitment, up from a combined total of approximately 440 billion Naira spent in 2023 and 2024, was detailed by MTN Nigeria CEO, Dr. Karl Toriola, during a recent interview on Arise TV.
Toriola highlighted that a key focus of the increased CAPEX will be on “putting additional capacity in a city like Lagos, particularly in Abuja, where you have a lot of buildings coming up, you need additional sites because there are coverage issues.”
Beyond these critical urban centres, the investment aims to bolster network resilience and ensure power stability for its infrastructure nationwide. This includes proactively addressing site outages by ensuring timely payment for operational necessities such as diesel for generators, a persistent challenge in the Nigerian operating environment
The CEO outlined the comprehensive nature of the upgrade process, which involves “placing orders formally, opening letters of credit, and then the equipment gets shipped in and installed.” He added that where necessary, MTN will be “acquiring new sites” and “laying fiber to the base station to create better stability.”
While the immediate CAPEX is geared towards improving existing service quality and capacity, this investment aligns with MTN’s broader goals, which include enhancing financial inclusion in underserved rural areas, suggesting a long-term vision for network expansion and service improvement that extends beyond metropolitan areas.
Customers are expected to begin experiencing the positive impact of these investments with a “significant improvement in quality of service” anticipated by the end of the second quarter or early in the third quarter of 2025, according to Toriola.
Airtel Nigeria, telecom service provider, has announced that its AI-powered Spam Alert Service issued over 9.6 million spam alerts between March 13 and May 20, 2025.
As part of its ongoing commitment to protecting customers from unwanted and potentially fraudulent communications, Airtel designed the AI Spam Alert service to analyze traffic patterns and detect anomalies.
In the period since launch the AI pinpointed a total of 9,667,008 SMS as potential spam messages in the two months after its launch.
Of these, the system identified 528,080 on-net (Airtel-to-Airtel) and 9,138,928 off-net (from other networks) numbers as suspected spam messages, demonstrating the scale of the threat and Airtel’s advanced processing capability.
Airtel Nigeria is a subsidiary of Airtel Africa.
Commenting on this development, Dinesh Balsingh, CEO, Airtel Nigeria, restated Airtel`s commitment to protecting its customers.
“This milestone demonstrates the strength of our AI-driven infrastructure in combating the growing menace of spam and scam calls. At Airtel Nigeria, we are focused on connecting Nigerians and ensuring their safety and confidence while using our network.
“We understand that trust is the cornerstone of digital communication. That’s why we’ve invested heavily in intelligent systems that not only detect potential threats but also learn and evolve with data. As threats become more sophisticated, so will our solutions. As a company, we remain focused on leading the industry in innovation and customer satisfaction, ensuring that every Nigerian can enjoy a safer and smarter digital experience,” Mr. Balsingh said.
The Spam Alert Service is part of Airtel Nigeria’s broader strategy to integrate artificial intelligence into its core offerings to deliver smarter and safer experiences for its customers across the country.
Recall that the Spam Alert Service was launched on March 13, 2025. A groundbreaking and free solution from Airtel, it notifies users in real-time of suspected spam SMS messages by analyzing over 250 parameters.
The Airtel AI Spam Alert Service is available to all Airtel subscribers on smartphones and feature phones.
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