Air Force Shortlists JSS1 Candidates for August Interviews
The Nigerian Air Force has released the lists of candidates shortlisted for interview into Junior Secondary School 1 of the Air Force Military School, the Air Force Girls’ Military School, Jos, and other Air Force Secondary Schools for the 2026/2027 academic session, opening the next stage of one of the country’s most competitive secondary admission processes.
The Air Force announced the development in a statement published on its official website on Wednesday. According to the statement, candidates can check the lists at NAF Secondary Schools or through the service’s official platforms, www.airforce.mil.ng and the Nigerian Air Force Education Command website. Sample interview letters are available for download on the portal, and candidates were advised to use the online result checker to verify their examination results.
The interviews will be conducted in phases. Screening for the Air Force Military School and the Air Force Girls’ Military School, Jos, is scheduled to begin on August 3, 2026, for Batch A and August 7, 2026, for Batch B. Interviews for the other Air Force Secondary Schools will hold from August 18, 2026.
The announcement follows a fixed annual calendar that has held steady in recent years. For the 2026/2027 cycle, applications closed on April 25, 2026, with candidates writing the centralised entrance examination set by the Nigerian Air Force Examination Centre. The pattern mirrors the previous session, when the 2025/2026 shortlists were released in July 2025 and interviews ran through early and mid August. The consistency reflects a system that now processes tens of thousands of applicants each year for a limited number of boarding and day-school places.
The Air Force runs one of the largest institutional school networks under any arm of the Nigerian military. The Directorate of Education oversees 20 NAF primary schools and 13 secondary schools, among them the Air Force Military School Jos, the Air Force Girls’ Military School Jos, and eleven Air Force Comprehensive and Secondary Schools spread across the country. Four of these, in Ikeja, Shasha, Port Harcourt and Makurdi, operate as day schools, while most others run full boarding programmes.
Admission is open to all Nigerian children, not only wards of serving personnel, a point the Air Force has repeatedly stressed. Candidates must be between 11 and 13 years old at the time of admission and must have completed primary six. The schools follow the national curriculum leading to the Basic Education Certificate Examination in JSS3 and the senior school certificate examinations in SS3, with the military schools adding cadet drills and inspections to the standard academic programme.
The system traces its roots to 1976, when the first NAF primary school opened at John Street, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos, later expanding into a national secondary network prized for discipline and academic performance. That reputation continues to drive heavy demand, with families across the six geopolitical zones competing for spaces each year.
Shortlisted candidates who scale the interview and document screening stage will proceed to the final admission list, expected later in the year ahead of resumption. The next application cycle, for 2027/2028, is expected to open around early 2027, following the established timeline.