The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, on Tuesday, highlighted three conditions that would guide the admission process for the incoming academic year into Nigeria’s unity schools.
Adamu made the disclosure while receiving results of the just concluded 2019/2020 National Common Entrance Examination for admission into unity schools from Abubakar Gana, acting Registrar of National Examination Council (NECO) in Abuja.
He boasted that the country’s 104 unity schools remain the best destination for secondary education, saying, “the good news is that our schools have an edge over most of the private schools in terms of qualified teachers and facilities among other variables.”
The Minister listed the admission criteria to include: National Merit 60%, Equality of States 30% and other factors 10.
“In this year’s exercise, the following shall constitute the admission criteria: National Merit 60%, Equality of States 30% and other factors 10%.
“May I add that candidates who apply for schools outside of their states of origin will be given priority. This is in line with the ideals of the founding fathers of our Unity Schools.
“It is the hope of Government that every graduate of our Unity Schools should be able to speak at least one Nigerian language outside his/her mother tongue in the course of his/her six year programe.
“In terms of the admission exercise, it will commence on the 14th of May 2019, with the first batch of admissions coming as from the first week of June. Supplementary admissions will take place between the 13th – 20th of July 2019. By the second week of September, the gates of all our 104 Unity Schools will be opened for resumption.”
While commending NECO for delivering on its mandate of conducting the examination, Adamu noted, “I want to assure all Nigerians that our Unity Schools remain the best destination for quality secondary education.”
The minister further revealed that six candidates scored the highest marks of 191 out of the total mark of 200, while two candidates scored the lowest mark of 1.Earlier in a brief remarks before the presentation of the results, the NECO Registrar, the ceremony was the first of its kind in the history of conducting the examination body. He said over 73, 000 candidates sat for the examination across 583 centres in Nigeria and Port Novo in Benin Republic.
