Following the release of the results of the last Senior Secondary Schools Certificate Examination of the National Examination Council (NECO), the Organization has attributed the late release of examination results to inadequate funding and long standing indebtedness of some State Government in paying the examination fees of candidates from their state.
In an interview with Radio Nigeria, the Registrar of NECO Professor Dantani Ibrahim Wushishi said the development was negatively affecting the organization and appealed to the indebted states to pay up, so as to ease the financial burden of the examination body.
The Registrar lamented that it is not easy to achieve the mandate of conducting such a nationwide exams of this magnitude relying only on candidates’ registration fees as working funds. For the body to be able to release exam results as at when due according to its action plan, it need resources to do that and it was lack of these resources that delays the release of results.
“Looking at the mandate that we have to achieve for Nigerians, you know that it is not an easy thing to achieve and we have only the registration fees to do that. That is to say we only have candidates’ registration fees to finance the conduct of the examinations.”
Professor Wushishi disclosed that NECO do not have any official subvention from the Government to conduct examination. Government only assist by paying the emolument of the Staff of the Organization. All other activities are financed from the Exams Registration fees of candidates.
The NECO Boss explained that NECO had already reduced its examination fees from 13,350 Naira to 9,850 Naira per candidate before the federal government introduced the program where MDAs will have to remit 25% of their Internally Generation Revenue IGR into the Governments consolidated fund. This further depleted the organization’s resources.
The Registrar of NECO however appreciated the Federal Government for the intervention it received which it promptly used to pay the over 65,000 examiners their outstanding entitlement.
Professor Ibrahim Wushishi also expressed displeasure at the rate with students fails to perform in schools after they had performed very well in the National Exams. He noted that there are so many factors responsible for the current situation where students finds it difficult to perform.
Some students may have a very good result but when they get to the higher institution they perform below average that doesn’t depict their performance. Some of these factors include environmental factors, human factors, economic factors and social factors.