Preparing students for success on both the NPSE and BECE exams

NETT is a digital platform that provides registered students and teachers with access to past NPSE and BECE exams.

NETT has been available online with free access for students and education professionals since 2017.
Features full exams, key concepts exams, and representative short exams with immediate feedback on student responses.
Includes a web-based format and an instructor-guided offline format for classroom or training facility use.

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About

About NETT

NETT is an education research project designed to help students in Sierra Leone and other West African Examinations Council countries prepare for national examinations. This page provides an overview of the project, the online platform, partners, collaborators, and current development work.

Review how NETT works

About the Project

What is NETT? Our Story Where We Are Now

Implementation

Students and Facilitators Schools and Offline Use Impact Review

People & Partners

Partners & Collaborators People Behind NETT Resources

How NETT works

Practical support for NPSE and BECE exam preparation

NETT gives students several ways to prepare for high-stakes exams, depending on the time they have and the support available. They can take full-length practice exams, focus on specific subjects or topics, or complete shorter representative exams.

Exam Mode

Students complete full-length practice exams that mirror the real testing experience, helping them build confidence, improve pacing, and become comfortable with the format and expectations of the NPSE and BECE.

Key Concepts Exam Mode

Key Concept Exams are focused review exams that let students concentrate on specific concepts or skills. Through targeted practice and feedback, students build understanding and confidence before they return to a full-length exam.

Representative Short Exam Mode

Representative Short Exams provide testing practice in less time. A sample of questions is chosen from past NPSE and BECE exams to reflect the content, style, and difficulty of the full test.

Educational impact

Built to support measurable learning outcomes

Field reports from Bo and Kono document repeated NETT sessions, offline equipment use, and large pupil attendance across exam preparation activities. NETT is also used in schools in Banta, Sierra Leone.

Reported Attendances 18,000+ Session attendances extracted from 156 field reports, 2022-2026

Bo February 2026 3,543 pupils 1,160 boys and 2,383 girls reported across NETT/NEPI outreach

Kono March 2026 1,640 pupils NPSE mock final examination monitored in two Kono centers

Note: reported attendances are from sessions that include girls and boys in Class Six and Junior Secondary Three from more than one hundred schools.

NETT in the Minerva magazine

These short clips share how NETT grew out of the University of Maine Honors College research collaborative and how the tool has been used with students in Sierra Leone.

School outreach

Minerva 2017

How the NETT project got started

This article introduces the research collaborative behind NETT and the early work to build a test-practice tool for students in Sierra Leone.

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Implementation session

Minerva 2019

Seeing NETT in Sierra Leone

This feature follows the team during a visit to Sierra Leone and includes reflections on what NETT can help schools notice about student progress.

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Classroom environment

Field photos

Students using NETT in school settings

Photos from school sessions show students, teachers, and facilitators gathering around the tool during exam-preparation activities.