By Ismail Auwal
Students from Sokoto and Zamfara public secondary schools will not take the West African Senior School Certificate Examination(WASSCE) in May/June this year.
The head of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) office in Nigeria, Patrick Areghan revealed this on Monday but did not explain why.
The examination body reportedly refused to accept candidates from Zamfara State over an accumulated debt owed over the years.
The administration of the state’s immediate past governor, Abdulaziz Yari, owed the examination body accumulated fees for public school candidates sponsored for the examination, Premium Times reports.
When contacted, the state’s commissioner for education, Zainab Gummi, stated that the issue is being addressed in the best interests of the students and Nigeria as a whole.
Sokoto and Zamfara States for many years, have lagged behind in education among the 36 states of the federation.
The data on the literacy index recently published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed the huge gap in educational development between the two states and other northern states.
According to the data majority of the people can neither read nor write in the states.
The data shows that Sokoto and Zamfara States have 15.01 percent and 19.16 percent respectively.
