Evaluating Arabic Language Assessment Practices in WAEC Arabic Examinations: A Nigerian Perspective

The West African Examinations Council Arabic language examination serves as the primary external benchmark of Arabic achievement for secondary school leavers across Nigeria, yet critical evaluation of the examination's construct validity, content alignment, and fairness from a Nigerian context perspective is lacking in the published literature. This study evaluates the Arabic language assessment practices embedded in the WAEC Arabic Senior Secondary Certificate Examination, examining the examination's alignment with the national Arabic studies curriculum, the cognitive levels tested across papers, and the relevance of examination content to the Nigerian cultural and sociolinguistic context. Using a document analysis approach, the research examines ten years of WAEC Arabic past papers alongside chief examiner reports and approved curriculum documents, applying a cognitive demand taxonomy and content validity framework to map alignment and identify gaps. Interviews with fifteen experienced Arabic teachers and two WAEC curriculum consultants provide practitioner assessments. The study finds that the examination over-privileges classical text comprehension and grammatical rule application at the expense of communicative writing and productive oral assessment. Cultural content in reading passages is found to be predominantly drawn from Arab world contexts with limited Nigerian Islamic referents. Recommendations call for examination reform to incorporate production tasks and Nigeria-relevant content. Keywords: WAEC, Arabic language assessment, examination evaluation, Nigerian curriculum, assessment validity.