By Raphael Jov
The National Examinations Council, NECO, has procured 8,000 units of Biometric Capturing Machines, 20 Hilux Vans in order to address irregularities and logistics problems, ahead of its May/June 2019 Senior School Certificate Examination SSCE.
NECO also procured 20 Hilux vans in an effort to speed up the distribution and delivery of its examination materials, and address other logistic problems getting in the way of delivering on its mandate.
Speaking at the Commissioning Ceremony in Minna, Niger State, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Arch Sonny Echono, said that the biometric capturing machines were essential to ensure the credibility of NECO exams.
Represented by the Director of Human Resources, Ministry of Education, Dr Auwal Koko, Echono urged the management of NECO to ensure that the 20 Pickup vans are well maintained and utilised for the benefit of the nation and humanity.
On his part, the Charman Governing Board of NECO, Dr. Abubakar Sadiq while lamenting that impersonation has become a major problem to public examination in Nigeria, he assured that the biometric capturing machines would reduce incidents of identity theft up to 90 or 95 per cent.
The 8,000 biometric capturing machines which were procured at the rate of N500 million while the 20 Toyota Hilux vans were procured at 327,800,000, are coming at the heels of a recent directive by the Federal Government to all agencies conducting public examinations to clean up their registration process to restore credibility in the exercise.
