Gombe approves payment of exam fees for 23,680 secondary school students
The Gombe State Government has approved payment of external examination fees for 23,680 final year students of public secondary schools across the state. The Commissioner for Education, Mr Dauda Batari, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Gombe on Wednesday.
He said: “Considering the performances of students in the 2020/2021 external examinations, the state government decided to increase the number of students from 15,277 in 2021 to 23,680 in 2022.”
Batari said that all students, who performed well during mock examinations in their respective schools, would benefit from the gesture, even if they were not indigenes of the state.
”The criteria for selecting the beneficiaries was mock examinations which are usually taken before the real examinations and we were satisfied with their performances, hence the increase in the number of students,” he said.
According to him, the state government has liaised with the Gombe State University to set the examination questions for the affected students.
He called on parents to ensure that their wards in day schools attended school regularly, rather than stay at home till the time of the examinations.
He also stressed the need for students to study hard in order to reciprocate the government’s gesture.
NAN reports that the examinations included Senior School Certificate (SSCE), National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies (NBAIS), National Examinations Council (NECO) and National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB).
The Gombe State Government has organised a four-day capacity building workshop for directors in the state civil service to improve productivity and efficiency in public service delivery.
The workshop was organised by the Office of the Head of Civil Service, the Civil Service Commission and the Bureau for Public Service Reforms.
Declaring the event open, Deputy Governor, Dr Manassah Daniel Jatau, said it was carefully designed after series of consultations with experts in order to inject the spirit of handwork, dedication, commitment and expertise on the participants to improve service delivery.
“Basically this administration believes in transparency, accountability, responsiveness, being rational, fair, and in short good governance.”
He charged the participants to aspire to proffer solutions to the challenges bedeviling the civil service.
The Head of Civil Service, Gombe State, Alh. Bappayo Yahaya, said the workshop was born out of the dogged determination and zeal of the present administration to revitalize and reinvigorate the civil service to make it more result-oriented in tackling the ever increasing challenges of governance in the state.
Chairperson, Civil Service Commission, Gombe State, Hajiya Rabi Shuaibu Jimeta, said public officials must be equipped with the knowledge and manifesto of political leaders to be able to implement their campaign promises.
Earlier, the Director-General Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Alh. Yusuf Dauda Kaltungo, said the exercise was the first of its kind aimed at introducing reforms in the service in line with the administration’s commitment to ensuring productivity in service delivery.