July 4, 2023

The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, David Adejo has blamed some state governors for the low enrolment in the ongoing National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB) certificate examination.

Adejo said this while monitoring the examination at the Government Science Technical College, Garki, in Abuja on Tuesday.

“I want to plead with the state governments because some of them discourage their citizens from this opportunity.

“They agreed to register students for the exams and they don’t pay the fees, so a number of states are not allowed to write the exams this year.

“NABTEB has to take that decision because previously, they’ve been allowing students to take the exams but because the debt is growing, so they have to withdraw the students from taking the exams,” he said.

Adejo encouraged state governors to be committed in paying for registered students, while expressing hope that with the new sets of governors, there would be a remarkable change in payment for the exams.

The permanent secretary, who expressed satisfaction at the conduct of the exams, said though the examination started late due to the early downpour, it was a success.

“Today we’ve come to monitor English language of NABTEB examination.

From what we see, the exams started a little bit late and it is understandable because there was rain and the weather was not conducive but five minutes lateness is not too bad.

“Students were on ground but for some reasons examiners could not be here to start at 9 a.m., but in all I am satisfied with the conduct of the exams,” he said.

Speaking on improvement in the country’s technical education, he said that we must continue to embrace technical education as a nation which was as a means to guarantee the future of the youths.

He charged parents and other stakeholders to let children get informed that the world had moved from white collar jobs to skills and hence embrace skills.

He said that the ministry had done a lot in providing opportunities at the tertiary level for technologically focused innovation and entrepreneurship.

Also Speaking, the Chief Executive Officer of NABTEB, Prof. Ifeoma Abanihe, said that enrollment for the 2023 examinations came low to 54,000 as against 88,000 in 2022.

Abanihe said the low enrollment was due to the inability of some state governors to pay for the examination of their students and was faced with the option of removing them from the 2023 examinations.

“The exams started last Monday, and this week is for compulsory general education subjects.

“The total enrollment this year is 54,000 because of some states owing us and we refuse the credit which brought the number a little lower.

“This shows that we need to do more and encourage technical education. We need more candidates because that is where you get the skills that equips you for life,” she said.

She commended the present administration for introducing students loan while also clamouring for the introduction of scholarships for technical education students.

She said the scholarships would encourage more students to go into technical education. (NAN)