The Federal Government has accused a state government of owing the National Examination Council (NECO) over N2 billion for registration of its students for the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination.
Federal Government lamented that the debt is taking a toll on operations of the council.
This is coming as over 1.3 million candidates registered to sit for the ongoing 2021 SSCE (internal) examination being conducted by NECO.
The examination commenced on July 5, 2021, and is scheduled to end on August 16, 2021.
Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, while monitoring the exercise in some schools in Abuja, noted that part of the challenges in conducting the examination was a number of states that offered to register candidates from their states and eventually failed to pay.
Also Read: New NECO Registrar Assumes Office, Promises To Reposition Council
He disclosed that a particular state is owing about N2 billion over the years, saying the council had to approach the ministry for help in order to effectively conduct the ongoing examination.
Echono said, “One of the issues is that we have encouraged NECO to start enforcing; because we have many notorious states, there is a particular state that is owing over N2 billion for many years.
“State governments offer to pay examination fees for candidates from their states but when it comes to the actual payment, they don’t do it, and that has strapped NECO. They suffer so much, they have to even apply to the Ministry for some kind of support to conduct the examination.”
via: Information Nigeria
No comments
Post a Comment