Borno State Governor, Prof. Babagana Zulum, has approved the release of over N300 million to offset fees owed the West African Examination Council (WAEC) by 21,827 students of public secondary schools who wrote the 2022 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) across the state.
The Borno State Commissioner for Education, Lawan Wakilbe, made this known during a ceremonial presentation of cheque to officials of WAEC in Maiduguri, the state capital, on Wednesday.
Wakilbe said the money, totalling N329,805,800, was already in WAEC’s account.
“Government is paying N329,805,800 out of which N295,456,150 is for the settlement of state and local governments share, which is a subsidy of 75% of the 2022 WAEC examination fees for 21,827 students studying in public schools across Borno State, while the remaining N34,349,650 is to settle outstanding WAEC fees for the year 2018.
“With this, government has now fully settled all its financial obligations to WAEC.
“With the payment, Borno’s 21,827 students who wrote WAEC exams from public schools are now free to access their results as WAEC already released the results on WAEC’s online portal,” the commissioner said.
He added that with the payment of the 2022 examination, the state government was focusing on 2023 examination.
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He, however, appealed to WAEC to consider extending the 2023 WASSCE to hold in eight local government areas; Damboa, Gwoza, Ngala, Dikwa, Mafa, Monguno, Gubio, and Mobbar.
Wakilbe noted that male and female students from the listed LGAs face serious challenges of being forced to relocate to boarding schools in Maiduguri for at least three months.
The WAEC zonal coordinator in Maiduguri, Zakariyau Abdullahi, described Governor Zulum’s commitment to payment of WAEC fees for public schools students as consistent.
The coordinator promised to ensure that all candidates who wrote the examination were able to access their results within hours.
On the increase of examination centres to eight additional local government areas, Abdullahi said WAEC was ready for that, but needed the government’s support in areas of logistics (mobility, security, and accommodation of officials).
“We are already in Chibok, Gwoza, Konduga, and Kaga LGAs,” the WAEC official added.
According to the Borno State Government, with the recent release of over N300m to WAEC, Governor Zulum has so far released N1.5 billion in three years for WAEC, NECO, and NABTEB examinations in public schools.
The amount included the payment of N434,726,200 for 2019 exams; N391,272,000 for 2020; N412,394,510 for 2021; and N329,805,800 released in 2022.
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