Minister Tasks NECO on Internally Generated Revenue

The Supervising Minister of Education, Chief Nyesom Wike, on Tuesday urged the National Examinations Council (NECO) to come up with strategies to improve its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
Wike made the call in Abuja at a conference on Repositioning NECO organised by its Governing Board.

``NECO cannot depend solely on government for funding. It will be difficult given so many commitments of government.
``You can look inwards and come up with strategies to improve on your internally generated revenue’’, he said.

According to him, this does not mean that NECO should increase its registration fees.
The minister said IGR would enable NECO to discharge its mandate with ease given the sensitive nature of its assignment.

``It is sad for instance to note that since inception in 1999, NECO is still operating from rented offices. You must as a matter of necessity put your own structures in place.

``In spite of the various challenges since inception, the council had made very significant achievements in its efforts to positively redefine the future of the Nigerian child through quality educational assessment,’’ he said.
Wike said the introduction of e-registration, early release of results, provision of adequate security to man sensitive materials, prevention of leakages among others had contributed to the success recorded by NECO.

The minister said this success had also been largely due to the commitment of government towards improving the quality of teaching and learning in schools.

He urged the board and management of NECO to work harder to improve on the standard already set.
Earlier, Chairman of the governing board of NECO, Dr. Paddy Njoku called for increase in the budgetary allocation to the council.

Njoku also called for adequate provision of instructional materials, saying that it had become a major area of concern for the council.

The Registrar of NECO, Prof. Promise Okpala, said the conference was organised to get input from stakeholders on ways of improving the operations of the council.

Okpala said NECO would continue to explore ways that would aid its repositioning for better service delivery.