More than 7,000 final year students in Sokoto state have failed to qualify for the payment of Senior Secondary School Examinations fees by the state government.

The state government has been paying NECO and WAEC’s fees for all final year students in public schools across the state.

Caliphate Trust learnt that out of 25,393candidates who sat for the Mock examination, conducted recently by the Ministry for Basic and Secondary Education, 18,170 scored the required results.

The Director, Examinations, of the ministry, Malam Shehu Muhammad Lema, in a statement signed by the spokesman of the Ministry, Nura Bello Maikwanchi, said all candidates who scored at least one credit and three passes as well as those who scored passes across all the five subjects were qualified for registration

Speaking with Caliphate Trust, Lema explained: “Part of the state government’s effort to reposition education was the reintroduction of the mock examination because it is a pointer. It points to the school authorities, the Ministry of Education and other educational stakeholders that this is the position of the student.

“The Sokoto state government wants to achieve a better result and we cannot achieve a better result without sieving and presenting competent and capable candidates to write the examinations.

This mock would help the ministry to fish out competent and credible candidates who would be presented for the NECO and WAEC.”

He recalled that the performance of the state’s students in WAEC and NECO had been poor which he said was the reason the government took the initiative.

“The record was not better than 24 to 25 per cent, and we were always positioned around the 30th among 36 states of the federation.

“Before the state government did this, it set up a committee that went around the other 18 northern states. We found that only Sokoto state was presenting its final year students to WAEC and NECO without undergoing screening or qualifying examination.”

According to him, every year the state government expends between N650million and N670million as registration and examination fees for the two examinations for about 28,000 students.

“Education is a gigantic sector which requires constant review and planning it is part of the declaration of emergency in education sector that we want to reposition,” he added. (Daily Trust)

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