Only 30,000 out of 92,591 candidates who sat for National Common entrance exam will be admitted -NECO

A total of 92,591 candidates across the country on Saturday sat for the National Common Entrance Examination conducted by the National Examination Council (NECO) but only30,000 candidates would be admitted due to carrying capacity of the schools.

Sonny Echono, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education disclosed in Abuja this while monitoring the conduct of the examination which held in over 600 centres across the nation.

The entrance examination would enable the candidates to gain admission into the 104 Federal Government Colleges also known as Unity Schools.

“We used to hover around 25,000 but we have the new additions, we are talking about almost one in three of those who are applying that will get space because we are talking of about 92,000 and 30,000 carrying capacity. The ratio is about one in three for this year,” Echono said.

He added that there has been an increase in the number of candidates sitting for the National Common Entrance examination.

According to him, the increase in the number of applicants was due to the ‘modest investment’ by President Muhammadu Buhari led administration in providing infrastructure and ensuring that proper teaching and learning take place in the schools.

He explained that in spite of COVID-19 pandemic that hampered most activities, more than 92,000 candidates registered for the examination as against the 75,000 candidates that sat for the examination in 2019, adding that parents have now picked interest in the Unity Colleges because of the improvement in infrastructure as well as the quality of teaching and learning going in the schools in the last few years.

“Also very significant to mention is that for the past few years, I took the pain to follow up to a state, about the least state that is interested in the examination and that is Zamfara State,” Echono said.

“But I’m very pleased to announce and it is a pleasure because it demonstrates what political will means; Zamfara that used to be 47 that is 36 states plus FCT, the absolute last, in the last few years, this year Zamfara has moved up to number 14.”

“More significantly, Zamfara has the highest number of applicants compared with any of the Northern states with a total of 1,740 candidates that registered for the examination. Last year, only about 74 candidates registered for the examination,” he added.