Professor Kaniye Ebeku, the Commissioner for Education in Rivers State, has stated that the state government has spent over one billion naira only on 2022 WAEC sponsorship.

The information may be confirmed through WAEC, according to the Education Commissioner, who also stated that the Rivers State government is investing heavily in education.

Professor Kaniye Ebeku said this to journalists in Port Harcourt on Wednesday after speaking to principals of public senior secondary schools in the state ahead of the 2022 West African Senior School Certificate Examination, or WASSCE.

The Education Commissioner noted that almost a billion naira was spent on registering 60 thousand public school candidates for the examination.

Professor Ebeku reaffirmed the state government’s commitment to financing external examinations in public schools.

“The state government is making a lot of investments in the field of education. Last year I checked the aggregate of expenditure for the external examinations sponsorship and I said that it was over one 1 billion; some of you thought I was kidding and were living in denial,” he said.

The Commissioner added;

“Today, I have come to show you that only for WAEC 2022 sponsorship, the government has spent about one billion naira. You can go to WAEC to verify this information. So you can see that the state is spending billions of naira to fund and sponsor candidates in public schools in the State for the examinations.”

He also reinforced the warning against examination misconduct in upcoming exams, saying that any personnel caught doing so could face firing.

“The state government, the Ministry of education, has zero tolerance for examination malpractice. We have reiterated our warning to the school principals that if we catch them for examination malpractices and WAEC sanctions them, we will sanction the principal by dismissal,” he said.

Professor Ebeku also warned principals against involving external candidates in the examinations.

He stated that any principal involved in registering external candidates for government-funded WASSCE, NECO, NABTEB, and BECE exams will be required to reimburse the state government for any fees earned.

“Also there are some malpractices on the part of some of the principals in sponsoring those they should not sponsor and we have called them to recant,” he said.

The briefing drew a large number of school principals from the state’s 23 local government areas. Directors of the Ministry were also present, as was Dr. Wisdom Ade, Acting Chairman of the Rivers State Senior Secondary Schools Board.

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