No fewer than 69,828 candidates on Saturday sat for the 2022 National Coming Entrance Examination (NCCE) nationwide, as they jostle for admission into the 110 Federal Government Colleges (FGC) also known as unity schools.
The NCCE is an annual Examination conducted by the National Examination Council of Nigeria (NECO) nationwide.
Permanent Secretary, ministry of Education, Mr. Daniel Adejo who led directors of the ministry on a monitoring exercise to some schools in the FCT; Government Secondary School and Junior Secondary School in Lugbe, as well as FGC kwali, noted unlike previous years, more female applicants sat for the 2022 examinations.
He said: “For this year we have about 69,000 plus applicants in all and again, it’s a good thing to note for those of us clamoring for increased gender equality in education, that there are more female applicants this year than last year.
“Of the 69,000 we have 36,855 female applicants and the balance of over 32000 males. From the three schools we have visited this year, we went to a school unannounced and that gives you an opportunity to see somebody not prepared, see what is happening.
“The children were writing their exams peacefully and I think by and large from what we’re seeing, it is going on well.”
Adejo who further noted that preliminary assessment has shown that the examination was going hitch free nationally, added that some basic criteria including consideration of best academic performance, were being put in place to ensure adequate candidates were selected at the end of the exercise
“We are not looking at taking all the 69,000 we are looking at taking the best of the 69,000 and they are standards and measures to guide that. The standards have been laid out and the criteria for all those have been put on the ground.”
Registrar National Examination Council of Nigeria (NECO), Prof. Ibrahim Wushishi who disclosed that about 75,000 candidates initially registered for the examination, noted that they were still on the spot payment by walk in candidates
According to him, Lagos State recorded the highest number of registered candidates with 19,516 candidates, while Kebbi State recorded the lowest with 74 candidates made up of 37 male and 37 females.
“We have the actual registration to be 69,823 but for those that have registered they’re about 75,000 plus. Payments are still going on and we’re hoping that they will also boost enrollment.
“There are walk in candidates while in the process of the examination. We have candidates that are coming in to pay so we take in those candidates and later they will go and do the registration. So the one week extension has actually boosted enrollment.”
Commenting on the over N2billon oed the Council by some state goverment’s, the Registrar noted that “we are recovering the money little by little. There are processes that we have to pass through formally if we’re not able to get payment from them.”
End.
