SaharaReporters learnt that despite the fact that students that took the examination paid their registration fees of about N18,000 each to the state Ministry of Education through their examination centres, the money was not remitted to WAEC.
Several thousands of public school students in Niger State have decried the continued withholding of their West Africa Examination Council results over an outstanding debt of over N295million by the state government.
SaharaReporters learnt that despite the fact that students that took the examination paid their registration fees of about N18,000 each to the state Ministry of Education through their examination centres, the money was not remitted to WAEC.
According to some of the students who spoke to SaharaReporters, the non-release of their results had made their educational journey stagnant as they described it as a big hindrance to their journeys in life.
One of the students, who identified himself only as Aliyu, said it was a sad thing for him when he remembered he could not show his parents his results after knowing what they went through before they could raise money to allow him to take the exam.
“I know the university lecturers, ASUU’s strike might make it difficult to enter university despite having a good JAMB score. But at least, I should have been in the College of Education by now if WAEC were not withholding my result. That would have been a better decision than wasting my precious time,” Aliyu said.
Another student, who simply identified himself as Usman said his greatest concern was the way the government was handling the situation which may affect them (the students) like their predecessors.
“This is what they did to the 2021 set of students. They could not get their results until early this year. I know two of my cousin sisters who were denied admissions in Bayero University, Kano (BUK) and University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) because they could not produce their WAEC results during the screening process and very unfortunate for one of them, she could not make JAMB when she sat for it again. Imagine that kind of situation the lady would because of this delay,” Usman said.
Usman further revealed that the continued withholding of their WAEC results had made many of his classmates give up on school.
“We have been at home for at least four months thinking we would continue our education immediately after secondary school. But I know many of my friends and mates’ passion for education has been killed due to this issue. You know how we did here in the North concerning education,” he added.
Meanwhile, Isah Adamu, chairman of the state universal basic education board had said that there were over 700,000 out-of-school children in Niger as of May.
Findings revealed that this was the first time that public school students were made to bear the consequence of the Niger state government's irresponsibility.
In 2017, the West African Examination Council (WAEC) withheld the results of over 15,000 candidates from Niger State that sat for the senior school certificate examinations. The decision by the examination body to hold on to the results was not on account of malpractices but because the state government failed to pay the examination fees on behalf of the candidates.
Also, it was reported that students of public secondary schools in Niger State who wrote the 2021 WAEC were unable to access their results to enable them to seek admission into universities due to the debt owed by the state government to the examination body.
Meanwhile, all efforts to get the reaction of the government to this perennial delay were proved abortive.
When contacted the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Mary Berje, said she was in a meeting and asked to be contacted via WhatsApp. But at the time of filing this report, all messages sent to her, requesting her reaction to this report were left unanswered.