The Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, has expressed its commitment to reducing the number of out-of-school children in the country, particularly in rural communities.
It added that it would expand their enrolment and integration into the formal education system.
The Executive Secretary of UBEC, Aisha Garba, announced this in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, on Thursday at the opening of a two-day management retreat themed, “Repositioning UBEC For Sustainable Basic Education Delivery In Nigeria.”
She also noted that most of the out-of-school children are concentrated in rural areas and are predominantly from impoverished homes, with economic inequality fuelling poverty in many vulnerable households. She stressed the need for more advocacy to address the challenges confronting basic education in Nigeria.
Garba stated that UBEC has taken seriously the implementation of its strategic goals of ensuring inclusive, equitable, and high-quality basic education for every child, as well as improving the availability and quality of teaching and learning materials in schools.
She, however, regretted the poor access to funds from the national education purse by states in the past, assuring that the present administration has now unlocked access to matching funds, including needs-based costing and targeted advocacy for counterpart funding and budget allocation.
Her words: “Over the years states have experienced delays in accessing the matching grant funds disbursed from the national level, the forum became necessary to address such discrepancies and other challenges confronting basic education in Nigeria.
“The event is strictly for the management staff to come together see how we can efficiently plan to effectively deliver on the key priority of this President Bola Tinubu administration Renewed Hope Agenda, and the Minister of Education in ensuring UBEC is repositioned to make significant contribution in the area of the Universal Basic Education for our children regardless of their background or geographical location.”
She noted that UBEC had been making strides in promoting and developing the basic education system but regretted that much still needed to be done to improve the quality and standard of teaching and learning through the upgrading of infrastructure in public basic schools.
She said UBEC, in conjunction with SUBEB, has carried out numerous interventions to improve the basic education system, including the construction of thousands of schools and the renovation of hundreds of classrooms.
