Date: 2012-02-16

The Kwara Government says the mass failure recorded by the Senior Secondary School III students in the mock examination has compelled it to cut down its grant on the payment of National Examination Council (NECO) examinations fee from N80million to N13 million. Raji Mohammed, the Commissioner for Education and Human Capital Development, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Ilorin that of the 33,000 students who were to benefit from the grant, only 3,100 passed the mock examination conducted by the state government. "With the development, out of the N80 million earmarked for the purpose, only N13 million will be released." He expressed the government's concern at the falling standard of education in the state, and promised that concerted efforts would be made to reposition the sector. Mr. Mohammed said government's decision to cut the grant was deliberately announced at the state-owned university in order to encourage more enrolment of indigenes for the NECO examinations. "Out of the 5,000 students at the Kwara State University (KWASU), only 2,010 are indigenes. To us, the figure is not encouraging enough."