* Allege marginalisation of the South

THE House of Representatives, Wednesday, faulted the entry requirementinto unity schools in favour of pupils from the north to the detriment of their counterparts from the southern part of Nigeria as announced by the Federal Ministry of Education.

In a motion moved under matters of urgent national importance, the legislators acknowledged that the policy runs contraryto the provisions of Section 42 (1) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, which states that no citizen of Nigeria shall be discriminated against on the basis of his community, ethnic group, place of origin, gender, religion or political opinion throughany law in force in Nigeria or any executive or administrative action of government.

In the plenary presided by the speaker, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, he declined to approve a request from sponsor of the motion, Mr Afam Victor Ogene calling for the suspension of the recently released discriminatory cut-off mark for unity schools.

Under the controversial policy recently announced by the Education Minister, Professor Ruqayyatu Rufai, an instance of the cut off mark for a male pupil from Abia is put 130, same for a female, as against 35 for a male and 35 for female from Bauchi state. Both male and female pupils from Kogi States are expected to both score 119 as against 9 and 13 for their counterparts from Sokoto state.

However, the lawmakers mandated the House Committee on Education to parley with officials of both the Federal Ministry ofEducation and the National Examinations Council, in order to review the policy in such a way that would guarantee fairness and accord the Nigerian educational system more credibility and general acceptance.
Members of the Aminu Sulaiman led-committee were directed to report their findings back to the House by Tuesday, July 2, 2013

basisop: This is how mediocrity starts. Are some of the students half humans? Same way they will also be pushed to graduate and they will sort themselves into a sensitive office as leaders. Our future is....

kkkp: .

Dolly-Parton:
And we wonder why the nothern part of Nigeria is not progressing.

Dolly-Parton:
And we wonder why the nothern part of Nigeria is not progressing.

Abu Mikey: ThankGod say the House of REPS members know say na wrong thing!!

kufre2010: Don't wory the problem started when our northern ruling elites refused to educate the northern youths so that they can use them as boko haram but now ministry of education is trying to balance the gap.

Bontee: There is nothing absolutely wrong with the cut of mark so the house of reps will at the end of the day be chasing shadows. The purpose and system of admission into the unity schools has already been laid out so why the fuse about the cut off mark. We should rather focus on using a different criteria to select students into the unity schools since the present criteria is not allowing us to see the reason why they were established in the first place.

Note: In my opinion the present arrangement of admittance is faulty but the disparate cut off points is on the right foundation.

Bontee:

It is not wrong as they are ignorant of the unity school system.

Bontee: It is better people read up about the unity schools of a thing before they start abusing the people of northern Nigeria. Its not like every kids from the south is smart or by default more intelligent than any kid from the north.

noblezone:

welcome to Nigeria, the "giant" of Africa.
Nigeria is a giant fraud!

Reps, una gudu moni oo!