Niger government has donated N11.300 million scratch cards to 1,000 students to register for the external National Examination Council (NECO) General Certificate Examination (GCE).
Alhaji Mohammed Shaba, The Chairman of Global Foundation for the Improvement of Education and Environment, a Non-Governmental Foundation (NGO), Alhaji Mohammed Saba stated this in an interaction with the newsmen in Minna, the state capital on Friday, adding that the donation was made through the NGO.
The NGO was established in 2009 by Shaba, a Lecturer at the Federal Polytechnic Bida, to augment and compliment the efforts of government on areas of education and environment.
Shaba explained further that this year, the NGO, recruited and trained 1,000 external students with deficiency across the 25 Local government areas of the state to write the GCE.
He said that the external students were selected and trained at the various centers across the 25 Local governments of the state.
He said that 40 students from each of the Local governments benefited from the scratch cards.
“The reason why we embarked on this project is because we realised that the intake of indigens admitted into the higher institutions is low.
“This is because most of the students who have completed their secondary school do not have the complete requirement to gain admission into the institutions.
“For many years now, the state has not been able to fill it’s quota in the existing institutions in the state because most of the students have deficiency in their results.
“This has made the state not able to fill it’s quota in higher institutions. So, what the NGO do is to recruit this students with deficiency and train them to seat for external examination.
“It is called “second chance” as they get the opportunity to seat for the exams the second time to augment their deficiency so as to gain admission into higher institution.
“After training the students, we then hand over those that pass to the state government to buy scratch cards for them to seat to write the external examination,” he said.
Shaba added further that the external students would augment candidates that graduated from secondary school with complete requirement to fill in the state quota in higher institutions.
He, however, commended the state government and the state Ministry of Education for partnering with the NGO to improve the educational standard of the state.
He said that the gesture would empower the youth and reduce youth restiveness in the state.
” This shows that the governor believes in the youth and believe that education is paramount and panacea to the development of the state and the country at large,” he maintained.
Also, in his earlier remarks, the Secretary of the NGO, Malam Hussaini Ibrahim, advised the students to be committed to their studies to make the state proud.
He said that the NGO would ensure properly monitoring so as to ensure that the scratch cards were used for the purpose they were meant for.