About 69,828 candidates on Saturday sat for the 2022 Common Entrance Examination into the nation’s 110 unity colleges.
The examination, organised by the National Examination Council (NECO), took place across the country.
This year witnessed the registration of more female applicants with 36,8555 and 32, 000 male applicants.
Lagos state had the highest number of applicants with 19,516.
Kebbi on the other hand had the least number of registered applicants with 74, replacing Zamfara State which occupied that position last year.
Minister of education, Adamu Adamu, who disclosed this to reporters while monitoring the examination in the Federal Capital Territory, on Saturday, said the examination ran smoothly across the country.
Adamu, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, David Andrew, said the idea of the monitoring was to help see how the Federal Government was progressing in terms of the basis for establishing the unity schools.
The Minister said: “So I think for this year we have about 69,828 applicants and again it is a good thing to note that there are more female applicants than male ones. Of the 69,828 applications, we have 36,8555 female applicants and the balance of over 32000 are male.
“And from the three schools we have visited we went to them unannounced to see what is happening and from the conduct we met there, it is going on very well. We are not looking at taking all the applicants but looking at taking the best out of them and there are standards that measure what you take and how you move it.”
Registrar and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NECO), Prof. Dantani Wushishi, who said the one week extension of the examination has actually boosted the enrollment noted that only 74 candidates registered for the examination in Kebbi, which was the lowest for this year.
The registrar said the results for the examination would be released soon.
He said: “So far from the report I got everything is going fine. We are recovering the money that states are owing us little by little and there are processes that we have to pass through if we are not able to get payment from them.”
The NECO boss added that the council was working out means to recover its over N2 billion debt owed by some state governments.