NO fewer than 78,378 candidates on Saturday sat for the Common Entrance Examination nationwide for admissions into the 104 Federal Government Colleges, also known as Unity Schools, to battle for the limited space in the colleges for the 2017/2018 academic session.
The results of the examination are expected to be released in five days.
Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, who made this known while monitoring the exercise in some examination centres in Abuja, commended the National Examination Council (NECO), for the hitch-free and orderly conduct of the transition examination.
He said the examination was held in all the states of the Federation, including Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states where relative peace has returned in the wake of Boko Haram insurgency that had ravaged the three North East states.
Adamu, however, explained that examination centres were restricted to urban areas in the three volatile states.
Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of NECO, Professor Charles Uwakwe, told newsmen after monitoring the exercise at the Government Secondary Schools Wuse, Zone and Wuse Zone 4 Tudun Wada, Abuja that the examination took place in 598 centres across the country and one foreign centre, Cotonou in Benin Republic.
He said adequate security measures were put in place by the Council to ensure hitch-free exercise, especially in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.
He said from the reports made available to him from across the examination centres in the county, the exercise was peaceful and orderly in spite of the fact that the process of the exercise was “very tasking”.
“The quality of the exams is excellent but like any other human endeavour, there is every room for improvement. For the better part of several days, we have not slept because of logistics issues. It’s a one day exams but it is quite tasking,” he said.
Uwakwe disclosed that Lagos State recorded highest enrolment with 24,816 candidates while Kebbi State had the lowest number of pupils that registered for the examination, with 63 candidates.
He said the result of examination would be released by NECO to the Federal Ministry of Education on 12th April, 2017, after which the Ministry would direct the Council to release it to the public.
The Registrar, however, said some states recorded low enrolment this year because their state governments could not support the registration of the children as many of them used to do in the previous years.
He said this was in addition to the insurgency that displaced many people in some northern states of the federation.
He noted that Common Entrance is an examination where pupils transit from primary to secondary school, and that the Council did not spare any effort to ensure the examination was well-conducted in terms of elimination of examination malpractice, logistics including question paper distribution among others.
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