By Joel Gwom –
The Federal Civil Service Commission, FCSC, says it is reviewing the 2026 Federal Civil Service Promotion Examination to make it more rigorous and professionally relevant, with the introduction of scenario-based questions for officers on Grade Levels 16 and 17.
This was disclosed on Tuesday in a statement signed by Ibraheem Zakariyya, Head, Press & Public Relations, Federal Civil Service Commission.
According to the statement the development came
at an interactive engagement with resource persons and stakeholders held at the Commission’s Headquarters in Abuja.
The meeting was chaired by the FCSC Chairman, Prof. Tunji Olaopa, and attended by Honourable Commissioners of the Commission.
Prof. Olaopa commended the resource persons for their years of service and professional integrity, saying their contributions had helped build “confidence, credibility and respectability” in the promotion examination process over the years.
The Chairman noted that lessons from the 2025 promotion exercise, the first to use Computer-Based Testing, CBT, and Multiple-Choice Questions, MCQs, informed the 2026 review. He said the “unusually high pass rate recorded during the maiden CBT exercise had raised concerns about the competitiveness, depth and discriminatory value of some of the questions administered”.
To address this, Prof. Olaopa urged the resource persons, whom he described as “custodians and gatekeepers of their respective professional cadres,” to set questions that go beyond basic knowledge and test “competence, professional knowledge, experience, judgement and maturity”.
Under the proposed arrangement for GL 16 and 17, candidates will answer 40 questions: 10 scenario-based questions carrying 2 marks each, and 30 multiple-choice questions carrying 1 mark each, for a total of 50 marks.
While calling for higher standards, the Chairman cautioned against questions designed to be unnecessarily difficult. “The objective is to assess mature candidates fairly and professionally,” he said.
Prof. Olaopa also stressed the need for “absolute integrity, confidentiality and professionalism” in the process. He disclosed that some examiners had been removed during his tenure “following intelligence reports concerning attempts to compromise the examination process”.
“The Commission is one of the critical gatekeepers of the Nigerian Civil Service and no individual or interest would be permitted to compromise the integrity of the Promotion Examination,” he added.
He expressed confidence that the collective expertise of the resource persons would help “further strengthen the Promotion Examination and sustain its credibility,” in line with efforts to restore high professional standards in the Civil Service.
