Over 90 per cent of Kano students, who sat for the qualifying examinations in the state, failed.

The exams gave students the chance or otherwise to be sponsored by the state government to write the SSCE exams.

The result was released just three days before the deadline for the National Examination Council (NECO) registration.

The students are expected to score seven credits, including Mathematics and English to get sponsored by the state government.

However, Daily Trust gathered that the dateline for NECO registration was too short for the students who failed the examination to get the required money to register for the exams.

The registration fees are around N12, 000 to N13, 000.

‘Only six out of 300 passed’

A teacher, who spoke to Daily Trust but declined to mention his name, said only six students passed the exam out of over 300 students in one of the schools.

This, according to him, will result in many of them repeating the class or drop out of school.

Cases like these are usually what discourage the students to continue with their studies.

Many of those that failed the exam don’t have money to pay for themselves.

And instead of them to repeat, they rather abandon the school because they have no certainty in the next year.

This is what adds to the number of dropouts we have in this region,

the teacher said.

Another teacher said only 60 out of 200 students passed the exam in the school he is working now and that yet not up to 40 out of 140 that failed have paid and registered for the NECO.

According to him, the government released the result very late, adding that many parents could not provide the NECO fee within three or four days.

I’ve given up – Student

A student, Usama Sa’adu, said he had already given up on writing the NECO exam since he did not have the means to pay for it.

My father cannot pay for me honestly and I don’t have the means to pay for myself.

So, I don’t know what to do now. All I know is if I didn’t write this exam, I will not go back to school because I don’t know if I will still win next year.

There is no certainty honestly because the person sitting next to me is not always coming to school but he passed the exam.

He only comes once or twice a week, while I always attend school. I never missed classes but he passed while I failed,

he complained.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.