Gombe Government has approved payment of external examination fees for 23,680 final year students of public secondary schools across the state.
The examinations include Senior School Certificate (SSCE), National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies (NBAIS), National Examinations Council (NECO) and National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB).
Commissioner for Education, Mr Dauda Batari, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Gombe on Wednesday.
He said: “Considering the performances of students in the 2020/2021 external examinations, the state government decided to increase the number of students from 15,277 in 2021 to 23,680 in 2022.”
Batari said that all students, who performed well during mock examinations in their respective schools, would benefit from the gesture, even if they were not indigenes of the state.
”The criteria for selecting the beneficiaries was mock examinations which are usually taken before the real examinations and we were satisfied with their performances, hence the increase in the number of students,” he said.
According to him, the state government has liaised with Gombe State University (GSU) to set the examination questions for the affected students.
The commissioner called on parents to ensure that their wards in day schools attended school regularly, rather than staying at home till the time of the examinations.
He also stressed the need for students to study hard in order to reciprocate the government’s gesture.
