….As Over 92,591 Candidates Sit For Examination

The Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu,  has expressed satisfaction with the conduct of  the 2020 National Common Entrance Examination into the unity colleges across the country,  stating that the centres complied with every protocol of covid-19 and started on time.

The  Minister gave the observation Saturday in Abuja  after  monitoring  the examination at Government Secondary School Wuse Zone 3 and Government Secondary School, Tudun Wada, Zone 4.

Adamu said results of the examination will come out as quickly as possible, while also disclosing that a new academic calendar for the schools will commence as soon as students complete their third term examinations.

Also,    the Permanent Secretary, Federal ministry of Education, Arc Sonny Echono,  after monitoring the exercise announced  an increase in the number of admission spaces into Federal Unity Colleges, FUCs, from 26,000 to 30,000 beginning from the 2020/2021 academic session. 
Echono said the increase follows the completion of six new federal government colleges in 2020, in addition to 104 existing ones.
He disclosed that over 92,591 candidates participated in the 2020 National Common Entrance Examination which took place on Saturday, in 639 centres nationwide.

 “We are expanding. We have added six new schools this year. So parents should not be worried we are going to be able to absorb as many as do very well. These are model schools; so we always take the best students.
“We are now moving towards 30,000 carrying capacity. We used to hover around 25,000-26,000 but with the new additions, we are talking about 30,000. So it’s almost one in three for those who are applying that will get space,” he said.

According to him, the significant increase in number was the result of modest investments government is making to turn unity colleges to what they used to be to provide basic infrastructure, make them secure and ensure that proper teaching and learning takes place in the schools.
“So we now have a lot of people finally becoming more interested. This year have more than 92,000 applicants for this examination. It’s a good jump from between 75,000 and 78,000 that we have had concurrently for three years.

“But also very significant to mention is that for the past two years I had the pain of complaining, in fact I even followed it with a visit to one of the states that used to be the least interested or in terms of participation in our examination and that is Zamfara state.

“But I am very pleased to announce today because it demonstrate what political will means. Zamfara that used to be 37th that is after the 36 states and FCT, it was the absolute last in the last two years, this year has moved up to number 14th in the country.

“And more significantly, it has the highest number of applicants from any of the northern states in the country. A total of 1740 candidates were registered from Zamfara state which is significant. Last year we had 74. We want every child that attends unity schools to meet at least one person from each of the states in the country so that we know about ourselves, our culture.

“We want to specially commend the government and people of Zamfara state for this very significant improvement and we call on many other states who have not done too well to continue to emulate Zamfara. But we have also observed from the trend that now there is a significant spread across the states,” he said.

Echono disclosed that as usual, Lagos was leading, followed by Abuja, Anambra, Rivers, Imo, Enugu and orders.

 Chairman, Governing Council, NECO, Dr Abubakar Sadiqque said  that the council had deployed modern technology that would fast track the release of results.

He also said that the council reduced examination fees to allow Nigerians have more registration in the examination.

On his part,  the Registrar of the National Examinations Council, Prof Godswill Obioma, said despite covid-19, the number of applicants increased in 2020 due to deepening awareness and visibility campaign carried out by the council to restore confidence in the institution.

Obioma said NECO will be a competitive exam body globally, noting that the exams was well coordinated as candidates complied with covid-19 protocol by wearing masks, using hand sanitizers and properly spaced to ensure social distancing.

The schools visited during the monitoring exercise include: Government Secondary school (GSS) Area 3, GSS Wuse II, FCT Tudun Wada and Model Secondary School, Maitama.