New Telegraph

Registrar: Conduct of ongoing NECO encouraging, hitch-free

 …as over 1.2m candidates write exams

 

A total of 1,209,000 candidates are currently participating in this year’s 2022 National Examinations Council (NECO) Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE), which commenced nationwide on June 27, 2022.

The results of the examination, which will also end on August 12, 2002, will be released 45 day after the last paper. The Registrar of the National Examinations Council (NECO), Prof Dantani Wushishi, disclosed this during the monitoring of the conduct of monitoring of the ongoing 2022 SSCE in Lagos.

 

He, however, declared that the general conduct of this year’s examination nationwide has so far been encouraging as it has been hitch-free and devoid of negative incidents. Wushishi said: “As you know, it is a process, as soon as the examination is concluded on August 12, we prepare for marking.

We have an action plan for coordination and marking and that is why we are optimistic that we will release the results 45 days after the last paper. “We have been going round states across the country to monitor and see things for ourselves. We started from Lokoja in Kogi State, and moved over to Ekiti and then to Akure in Ondo, Osogbo in Osun, Oyo State, and to Abeokuta in Ogun, and now to Lagos.”

The Registrar visited Ilupeju Senior Grammar School and Agbayewa Memorial College, Ilupeju among others during the monitoring exercise. Meanwhile, the Registrar has frowned at N2 billion examination fees owed the examination council by some state governments, which according to him, was already slowing down its efforts in ensuring the smooth operations of the council.

He, therefore, appealed to the five states that were yet to remit the examination fees of their candidates to help the council and do the needful, saying: “However, because of the relationship we have with these states, some of them have started responding, while others are yet to make any attempt.”

The Registrar added: “We are following up, to let them understand that it is important to keep this council afloat by remitting their monies because the council executes its capital projects and overheads from such funds, as the Federal Government does not give us capital expenditure and overheads.

“The Federal Government only pays salaries of staff and we have challenges all around our offices across the country, as far as equipment, infrastructure and other things are concerned.

“So, we are letting these states know the importance of meeting up their financial obligations to the NECO, for it to remain afloat as well as the importance of the payment for students to be able to have their results released, with which to progress academically, to be useful to themselves and the nation in general as the debt has accumulated from 2012 to date.”

 

On the conduct of the examination, he also noted that the feedback from principals of the various centres concerning the conduct of the examination had been commendable. But, so far, the Registrar added that the successes recorded in the conduct of the examination did not suggest that there had not been some internal challenges.

He further stated: “In conducting examinations of such magnitude there is a likelihood of some internal challenges but they are no longer challenges when they have already been surmounted.

Even in the face of the security challenges across the country, we ensured that the exercise, our candidates, examination materials and all those that are involved in the administration of this examination are safe. “We are grateful for the level of cooperation we are receiving from security agencies to ensure that the examination is conducted in a hitch-free manner, including where there is the enforcement of the Sit-at-Home order.”

 

On his achievement so far in his first year in office, Wushishi explained that it had been filled with great innovations in an effort to reposition the council, saying: “I am so happy to state that in my first one year in office, I have repositioned NECO in two aspects. The first is that we have succeeded in changing the mindset of our staff toward work ethics.”

He added: “We have also been able to encourage them to feel and have a sense of belonging to the system. They should see and own the system, as well as protect it, because nobody will come from anywhere to protect this institution for us.

“We are the largest indigenous examination body in Africa and by implication we have to take pride in protecting it. It has been teamwork and I must say as a council, the board members, members of staff and management, we have all done well.”

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