FGN: Make WAEC, NECO and JAMB Exams Free

Many candidates are stranded because state governments that promised to pay for their certificate examinations have failed to fulfill their promise to our examination bodies. Months after the results have been released, the affected candidates cannot download theirs and use them for admission purposes. I do not need to say that governments that renege on their promise are irresponsible. Most northern states are guilty of this breach atone time or another. Why promise what you cannot fulfill? Haba.

What is the way out?

One. I wish WAEC and NECO have a way of releasing the results of any candidate in the affected states who intends to pay in the event of such failure. Many candidates would have paid to get off the hook of the examination bodies. With the remarkable advances in IT, this will not be an impossible task. If examination bodies fail in this, then they must be considered as culpable as the governments of those "failed states." So let the bodies open a portal for candidates intending to pay and do so promptly. They can reimburse the candidates when the bulk payment from their states arrives.

Two. If I were the Minister of Education in a regime of change like this one, I would push for the scrapping of examination fees at the certificate level, bringing about - at least in one area - the much promised relief to parents who are preoccupied with the challenges of survival like never before. This is one of the twenty-four advices I offered the Minister when I visited him less than a year ago.

Pro-consolidation apologists will quickly call the suggestion impossible, arguing that government does not have the money to fund the examinations. Yeah, we know them. This kind of people persuaded PMB to abandon any subsidy that the government accords its citizens before - and he agreed. And despite claiming to have accumulated so many trillions in the TSA and recovered hundreds of billion from corrupt officials, they have advised him to borrow $30billion dollars. How much is examination fees in the midst of these unimaginable figures?

Besides, technology is on the part of the poor parents. For example, how long will it take JAMB computers to mark, collate and release the results of 3 million online multiple-choice scripts? How many billions does the examination body rake from parents annually for just this? Is it necessary that people must be squeezed so hard?

If the executive will not be sympathetic enough, can we have some patriotic members of our National Assembly push for a bill on that?

I hope the examination bodies will take my first advice seriously while the Minister or our representatives work towards the actualization of the second.

Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
30/10/2016