By Wole Balogun, Ado-Ekiti
EKITI State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has given his administration a pat on the back for the outstanding performance of the state’s candidates in this year’s National Examination Council (NECO) and West African Examination Council (WAEC) results.
An analysis of the NECO results released, Friday, showed that Ekiti State topped the 36 states of the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory with 96.485 of its candidates recording successes in the examination. Edo State came second with 96.31 percent candidates’ success, while Abia and Kogi states jointly secured the third place position.
Speaking through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Idowu Adelusi, Fayose described the feat as heartwarming, adding that the efforts of his administration to reposition education in the state was already yielding results.
According to Adelusi, no fewer than 37 percent of the state’s candidates that sat for WAEC in 2015 and 2016 had a minimum of five credits, including English and Mathematics. This, he said, was a sharp departure from the unimpressive performance of the state’s candidates in the 2012, 2013 and 2014 academic sessions.
“I recall that Mr. Fayose was the first Ekiti State governor to organize an Education Summit in 2003 during his first tenure, the result of which was that the state ranked 7th in the country and the first in the South West then”, Adelusi said.
He further disclosed that part of the strategies employed by the present administration was to introduce special salary for teachers that handle core subjects across the state with adequate provision of the required teaching aids in all schools. According to the governor’s spokesperson, a total of N411.7m had so far been committed to paying a total of 5,130 core subject teachers under the new scheme.
“Governor Fayose did all of these not only to motivate the teachers, but to also ensure that the type of students we present for external exams are not half-baked”, he said.