The Gombe State Executive Council on Tuesday during its 37th meeting okayed N549.4 million for 19,840 students across 151 senior secondary schools to participate in the forthcoming examinations.
No fewer than 1,243 students would write National Business and Technical Examination Board, while 309 would write National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies, and 18,288 to seated for the West Africa Examinations Council.
Briefing journalists after the council meeting, Commissioner for Education Dr Aishatu Maigari said, “Gombe State Executive Council has approved the payment of Senior Secondary Certificate Examination, for 19,840 students. In 151 senior secondary schools, these students are going to enjoy payment of WAEC for 18,288 writing the exam. 1,243 are writing NABTEB, 309 are writing NBAIS.”
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On how the beneficiaries were picked, she noted that the current administration has commenced a mock process to select the best to get results, “They sat for the mock examination, since the inception of this government in 2019 we have been writing the examination in 2019 when we took over saw an abysmal performance of 22 percent got five credit, in 2023, 67.5 percent of our students got five credits including Mathematics and English.
The percentage of students we are paying for is 72.59 percent, we had over 23000 students who sat for the mock examination. We made it 60 percent,” Maigari added.
The commissioner added, “The students include both our indigenous students and exam students this is coming at a time when examination bodies have increased their fees. The governor approved N549,492,175 million.”