Jethro Ibileke/Benin

The National Business and Technical Education Board, (NABTEB), has expressed satisfaction with the increased interest shown in recent times by the federal and state governments in technical education.

Prof. Ifeoma Isiogo-Abanihe, Registrar/Chief Executive​ of NABTEB, disclosed this Wednesday in Benin, while announcing the release of the November/December 2018, NBC/NYC and ANTC examinations results.

“It is important to observe here, considering the moderate improvement in candidates’ performance in the NABTEB certificate examinations just released, that the renewed interest of the federal government and a number of state governments in technical and vocational education may have started making impact in terms of attracting candidates to TVET, thus, NABTEB examinations.

“This is in line with recent policy directions​of the federal government as technology, scieand TVET constitute one of the major pillars of the ministerial strategic plan of the federal ministry of education,” she said.

The results released showed that out of the 45,307 candidates who enrolled for the examinations nationwide, 40,848 were registered for Ordinary Level Craft Certificate examinations, while 4,459 enrolled for Master Craft or A Level examinations.

A further analysis of the results revealed​ that 72.79 per cent of candidates scored five credits and above, including English language and mathematics.

“At the ordinary level, the enrollment of candidates is distributed across 17 engineering trades, seven construction trades, amongst others. It is important to note that out of the 8,191 candidates that sat for Trades examinations, 3,898 were certified at Ordinary Level while out of the 3,679 candidates.

“We are determined to improve on this increase in enrollment for our various examinations through aggressive sensitisation and advocacy activities,” she said.

While disclosing that just 1.4 per cent of 44,603 candidates were involved in examination malpractice, which she said is a slight reduction from the figure of the year 2017, the NABTEB boss said efforts are being made to check malpractices.

“It is equally gratifying to note that the modalities put in place by the Board to checkmate examination malpractice are yielding good results,” she disclosed.