Africa: national exam dates and examination bodies

How examinations are organised across the region

Africa has no single examination pattern, but there are three broad models. A number of West African countries share regional examinations administered by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), which runs the WASSCE for candidates in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Gambia. Anglophone East and Southern Africa mostly run national councils — Kenya's KNEC administers the KCSE, and South Africa's Department of Basic Education administers the National Senior Certificate.

Francophone countries generally follow a structure inherited from the French system, with a brevet at the end of lower secondary and a baccalauréat at the end of upper secondary, administered by the national ministry. North African countries run their own national examinations — Egypt's Thanaweya Amma and Morocco's baccalauréat among them — on national calendars.

Why the timetable varies so much

Two factors make a single African exam calendar impossible. First, the academic year itself differs: most of the region runs a year that starts in September, but several southern African countries follow a January–December year aligned to the southern hemisphere, which puts their final examinations in October and November. South Africa's NSC examinations, for instance, run in the final quarter of the calendar year.

Second, many national councils publish detailed subject-level timetables only a few months ahead, and some publish them through circulars to schools rather than on a public website. Where we have not been able to cite a published timetable, we list the examination body and its official site instead of estimating.

Using these dates

Treat the exam body's own site as definitive. Regional examinations such as WASSCE have separate sittings for school candidates and private candidates with different timetables, and national councils frequently issue amended timetables after the first release.

If you are preparing rather than just scheduling, most of these bodies also publish past papers and marking schemes, which are usually the strongest free revision material available for their examinations.