Ebonyi state government Wednesday announced suspension of the unified examinations policy indefinitely.
It blamed the decision on the illegal fees collected from students by schools heads for the exams.
The state Commissioner for Education Prof John Eke announced this while briefing reporters in Abakaliki, the state capital.
He gave all school Principals in the state seven days ultimatum to refund the illegal fees they collected from students for unified examinations introduced by the government in the school system.
According to him, any school principal who fails to refund the illegal fees after the seven days ultimatum will be sanctioned.
He noted that the government introduced the concept of the unified examinations in all the public and private schools in the state to tackle the poor performances of students in WAEC and NECO.
Prof Ekeh noted that the illegal fees imposed on the students by Principals for the unified exams was threatening the concept and tarnishing image of government.
He said: “We came up with a decision that there must be unified examinations for students before they move to their next classes.”
‘’We approved for amount of money to be collected for the unified exams; N1, 000 for secondary schools and N500 for primary school. In it, N100 was approved for logistics for secondary schools while N50 was approved for primary schools.
‘’Unfortunately and embarrassingly, some school heads started collecting outside what we approved. Some are collecting N1, 500, some are collecting N700 instead of what was approved and this government feels for the plight of our parents”.
‘’This is why we decided to suspend the unified exams indefinitely and order the refund of all the fees collected from the students for it because the unified examination is not for money making,’’ he said.
