Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari has approved the reduction in the cost of forms for Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME; the Senior School Certificate Examination, SSCE and the Basic Education Certificate Examination.
Tolu Ogunlesi, the Head of Digital Communications for President Buhari, disclosed this in a tweet on his Twitter handle, @toluogunlesi, on Wednsday, saying that the reduction would take effect from January 2019.
The UTME is organised by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, while the SSCE that is affected is the one organised by the National Examination Council, NECO.
Ogunlesi said the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu nnounced this after Wednesday’s Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting in Abuja.
Ogunlesi said with effect from January 2019, JAMB UTME Form would drop from N5,000 to N3,500, while NECO would drop from N11,350, to N9,850.
“President @MBuhari has approved the reduction in the cost of Forms for JAMB UTME, NECO SSCE and the Basic Education Certificate Examination.
“With effect from January 2019 the cost of JAMB UTME Form will drop from N5,000 to N3,500. NECO will drop from N11,350, to N9,850,” he said in the tweet.
“Minister of Education Adamu Adamu announced this just now at today’s FEC meeting. He said President Muhammadu Buhari directed the Ministry to look into the reduction following the significant improvement in revenues being remitted to the Treasury by the Education Agencies.
“The Exam Agencies are not meant to be revenue generating bodies, they’re only supposed to cover costs/operating expenses. The sharp increase in remittances by JAMB (from less than N60m in 2010–2016 to >N15 Billion in 2017/18) have shown that the fees being charged could be reduced,” he added in the tweet.
Tho the timing might look political, but this is very laudable!
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