- NECO, on Thursday, November 15, through its director of exams administration, Mustapha Abdul, announced its postponement of its examination
- Abdul said that NECO made the decision due to the federal government's declaration of public holiday (Eid-el-Maolud)
- He dismissed claims that the body had postponed its examinations for about three times
The National Examination Council (NECO) has said that the postponement of its examination for private candidates came as a result of the federal government’s declaration of a public holiday.
NECO also refuted claims that it has postponed its examination for about three times, explaining that it had not released its timetable until it was officially published on Wednesday, November 14.
Mustapha Abdul, NECO’s director of exams administration, made this known in an interview on Thursday, November 15, Punch reports.
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In a recent statement Abdul said: “We planned our timetable based on the fact that we expected Wednesday to be a holiday, that is the Eid-el-Maolud.
"However, the change was confirmed yesterday (Wednesday), when we learn from an authoritative source that the Federal Government would declare Tuesday a public holiday, instead of Wednesday.
“Since we cannot have an examination on a public holiday, the best thing we could do was to shift it and notify the candidates. The examination would have started today. And if we had shifted the exams around without notifying the candidates, so many candidates would have missed their vital papers.
“So we needed to buy time for people to be notified of the change and not miss their papers. If there was no public holiday, there wouldn’t have been a shift.
“We took this step because this is a private examination for people who really need to pass a subject that is required to gain admission to the university.
"If there is any mix-up and they miss a paper, it could be very devastating. That’s why we had to shift the examination to give people ample time to get better information.”
Concerning the development, a candidate, Olu Jaiyesimi, who was supposed to sit the examination at Tolu School Complex in the Ajeromi Ifelodun local government area of Lagos said: “I didn’t bother myself because I was expecting them to shift the examination.
"This is the third time now. It is almost as if they are not interested in conducting the examination.”
Another candidate, Amara Okoye, who was to take the examination in Ibafo, Ogun state, expressed shock at the postponement.
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Abdul called on candidates to check their emails for latest information. He said: “This is the first time it has been postponed. We scheduled it to hold from November 19 to December 19.
"We had never released any timetable before then. The information that was passed around before now is incorrect. That happens a lot on social media. That is why we refer people to our website to download the updated timetable.
"We sent emails and text messages to candidates, just to make sure that they got correct information and no one missed a paper.”
Earlier, Legit.ng reported that NECO had announced that its November/December 2018 Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) would commence on Monday, November 19.
Abubakar Gana, the acting registrar of NECO revealed this in a statement in Abuja, adding that candidates should check their email boxes for the released timetable.
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