The hope of over 10,000 final year junior secondary school students to further their education currently hangs in the balance as Kogi State government fail to release the Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE) two months after resumption of new academic session.
Some of the affected students who wrote and passed the entrance examinations into some schools in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja and some neighboring states said they were on the verge of being denied admission due to non release of their transitional examination results.
Representatives of the affected students told this reporter, on Thursday, that the nonchalant attitude of the state government to their plight is a threat to the academic advancement of the state.
They charged Governor Yahaya Bello to direct the relevant agencies to release their results immediately to avert truncation of their academic dreams.
Speaking on behalf of the affected pupils, Julius Onimisi lamented that the state government is insensitive to the plight of the citizenry, alleging that corruption in the ministry of education was responsible for their woes.
Onimisi noted that the government through the ministry of education had collected N7,750.00 from each student for the conduct of the transitional examinations three months ago as a requirement to proceed to Senior Secondary class but wondered why the government has failed to release the results after two months of resumption.
He noted that the state government having known their inadequacies in conducting the examinations would have contracted either WAEC or NECO to conduct the examinations as it is done by the Federal Government and some specialized institutions for their students.
The spokesperson appealed to the state government to release their results without further delays to avert the breakdown of law and order adding that they would not fold their arms watching the government truncate their academic progression.
“We have worked hard to pass common entrance to Government Science and Technical Schools in Abuja and of course Federal Government Colleges. We can’t register because we do not have the requirement, BECE certificate.
“We have cried to the state Ministry of Education to help us with the release the results to avoid us loosing the hard earned admission. Every one is aware of the deplorable state of Education in Kogi state and that is why we decided to seek for better place in the neighboring states, but corruption in the state is hindering us from achieving our desires.
“We are confused as to where our problems lies as the Commissioner for Education Mrs. Rosemary Osikoya kept shifting blames on the civil servants. We are helpless and we are using this medium to call on Governor Yahaya Bello to wade into the crisis to avert dislocation of our educational pursuits,” he appealed.
This reporter gathered that the present Commissioner of Education, Mrs Rosemary Osikoya on assumption of duty in the ministry revoked the consultancy services of one Rollar Cecilee Communications, a consulting firm hitherto handling the BECE who was assumed to be efficient but was replaced with one CIN firm which allegedly lacked technical know-how to handle the task.
