The Niger Government has spent over N600 million to register students in public secondary schools for the 2018/2019 WAEC/NECO School Certificate Examinations. Malam Garba Abdullahi, Director, Test, Measurement and Evaluation, Niger State Ministry of Education, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Minna on Monday.
Abdullahi said that the passion of the present administration to promote quality education and encourage those who had dropped out of school to return was the motivation for the government to do this.
“People see it as the sole responsibility of the parents but what of when the parents do not have the money to pay for the registration. “Some of the students dropped out because they did not have money to pay. “Niger Government magnanimously recalled all the dropouts back to school. I can tell you the number of dropouts has reduced drastically.
“Our students that took school certificate examination this year performed excellently well across the board. Over 50 percent of our candidates performed excellently well. “This is so because they had no stress or pressure of farm work in order to raise money for the examination. We also sensitized their parents to give their children and wards time to study,’’ he said.
Abdullahi further explained that it was the desire of the state to rid the state of drug abuse by youths, truancy, early marriage, banditry, amongst others. “We can only succeed if we are able to tame our youths via education.
“We do not want them to go into early marriage, prostitution, banditry and other vices on the excuse that they did not have money to register,’’ he said.
Abdullahi also said that it was frustrating for a student to go through Junior Secondary School and drop out of Senior Secondary School because of the registration fee. “This examination encourages them and gives them a lot of opportunities and we are not going to stop the assistance. “The former state government did it and we are continuing because it had paid off so much in reducing crimes in the state.
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