Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, has approved the release of over N300 million to offset fees owed the West African Examination Council by 21,827 students of public secondary schools who wrote this year’s examination across the state.
The State’s Commissioner for Education, Lawan Abba Wakilbe, disclosed this on Wednesday in Maiduguri during a ceremonial presentation of cheque to officials of WAEC.
The commissioner said the money, totaling N329, 805,800 was already in WAEC’s account.
The cheque presentation was held at the conference hall of the state’s Ministry of Education in Musa Usman Secretariat.
Zakariyau Abdullahi, WAEC’s Zonal Coordinator in Maiduguri, received the cheque.
“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 these, government has now fully settled all its financial obligations to WAEC”, the education Commissioner said.
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, Wakilbe confirmed.
He also said with 2022 payments done, the state government was focusing on 2023 exams and for that the state government appealed to WAEC to consider extending the 2023 WASSCE to take places in eight Local Government Areas, namely Damboa, Gwoza, Ngala, Dikwa, Mafa, Monguno, Gubio and Mobbar.
He 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.
With the recent release of over N300m to WAEC, Zulum has so far released the combined sum of N1, 568,198,510 in three years, for WAEC, NECO and NABTEB exams 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.
Zakariyau Abdullahi, Coordinator of WAEC in Maiduguri, confirmed receipt of the payment by WAEC.
He described Governor Zulum’s commitment to payment of WAEC fees for public schools candidates as consistent.
The coordinator promised to ensure that all candidates who wrote the exams were able to access their results within hours and this was done.
On the increase of examination centers to eight additional local government areas, Abdullahi said that WAEC was ready for that, but needed government support in areas of logistics (mobility, security and accommodation of officials).
“We are already in Chibok, Gwoza, Konduga and Kaga LGAs,” the WAEC official said.
