Niger stops payment of WAEC fees for non-indigenes

The Niger state government may have stopped the payment of the WAEC registration fees for non-indigenous students in public schools throughout the state.

According to very reliable source, parents of these category of students were verbally directed to pay the appropriate fees through the school heads to the examination bodies.

However government will continue to pay the registration fees for Indigenous students.

The payment of both the WAEC and NECO registration fees was introduced in 2007 by the administration of former Governor Muazu Babangida Aliyu to reduce the financial burden on parents.

However, at the inception of the present administration, Governor Abubakar Sani Bello, blaming paucity of funds, changed the policy by directing that the government would henceforth pay for only one examination for all category of students sitting for the public examination in public schools.

The new government policy has already created confusion among parents of non-indigene students in public schools.

Some of the parents had besieged media houses saying that  “we are caught unawares by this new government policy.

“We are we going to get N25,000 to pay these registration fees, government should have given us a long notice to plan ahead.”

One Mr. Vincent Obioma said “this government wants to destroy the education of our children.”

It was learnt that the registration for students that would write the May – June senior school certificate examination would close this week while that for NECO would open next month.

All efforts to confirm the veracity of this policy from the Commissioner for Education, Hajia Fatima Madugu, was abortive.

Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Jibrin Ndace, when also contacted promised to verify the authenticity of the story and “contact you back” but did not do so until the time of going to press on Tuesday.