DETAILS of the Federal Government's imminent plan to alter the mandate of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), were unfolded and subjected to debate at a two-day retreat, organized by the Federal Ministry of Education (FME), in collaboration with the commission in Uyo, capital of Akwa Ibom state last week.The impressive roll call of stakeholders included: Education Minister and the Minister of State ' Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufai and Mr. Ezenwo Wike; a few heads of parastatals under the FME, several but not all Commissioners for Education, Chairmen of the States' Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs), teachers, the Senate Committee on Education's Chairman, Uche Chukwumerije and a few development partners.The debate became imperative because of the expansion in UBEC's mandate to now manage and fund the public Senior Secondary segment. Before now, the commission, which draws its essence from the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Act of 2004, had been saddled with the responsibility of managing the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) level for children aged 3 to 5years; the primary level for pupils aged 6 to 11 years and the Junior Secondary segment for pupils aged 11 to 14 years. The commission had itself replaced the defunct National Primary Education Commission (NPEC), an albatross of some sort.But this new UBEC's mandate has also thrown up several complex questions. One: what will happen to the 104 Federal Government Colleges, currently under the ineffective management of the FME' Two: Where will the additional funds needed for dealing with the costs associated with the new burden come from' Three: Will the secondary segment also be tuition-free, since the existing UBE Act recognizes only the pre-primary, primary and JSS segments' The questions are many.An array of academics, including two former Executive Secretaries of the commission: Prof Pius Obanya and Prof. Gidado Tahir; Prof Benedict Duyilemi of the Adekunla Ajasin University, Ondo state and the former Chairman of the Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board, Dr Sulleiman Adediran were on hand to treat various basic education issues.The UBE scheme was introduced in September 1999 by former President Olusegun Obasanjo's administration, with the target of delivering basic education in the country and to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Education for All (EFA) targets by 2015. Although, basic education, according to the constitution, is the responsibility of the Local Governments, the federal government still felt compelled to intervene. It provides funding for the UBE scheme through a block grant of not less than two per cent of its Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) and other contributions in form of federal guaranteed credit. Some local and international donor grants also come in.However, the UBEC lost a veritable source of funds as a result of the dramatic alteration of the Act establishing the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), formerly known as the Education Trust Fund (ETF), by the National Assembly last year. A new Act was enacted to replace the ETF Act 17 of 2003 and the amended Act Cap E4 of 2004, both of which were, themselves, an amendment of the original Decree 7 of 1993.That original ETF law had asserted that 50 per cent of the education tax proceeds should be allocated to higher education; 40 per cent to primary education and 10 per cent to secondary education. But this is no longer the case. The amended TETFund law has expunged both the primary and secondary aspects and is now concentrating on the tertiary level. Thus, UBEC will be losing about N22 billion yearly through this amendment alone.Critics of the UBE scheme have often labeled it a failure, and are quick to point to the several challenges the scheme has been battling with. However, the Executive Secretary of the commission, Dr Ahmed Modibbo Mohammed gave an impressive scorecard at the meeting. He informed the audience in his presentation titled: 'Universal Basic Education Programme Implementation: The Journey So Far,' that from 2005 to the fourth quarter of 2011, UBEC had received the sum N284, 035, 886, 153.00 from the federal government. The money was given to provide support to the states for the implementation of the UBE programme. But in disbursing the money, UBEC is guided by a Federal Executive Approved formula, which allocates 50 percent of the money for provision of infrastructure as matching grants; 14 per cent for Educational Imbalance; two per cent for Special Needs Education; five per cent for Good Performance; 15 percent for provision of Instructional Materials; 10 per cent for Teacher Professional Development, while programme monitoring and implementation take two per cent each.Mohammed also gave a long list of achievements and various efforts put in place to ensure the success of the scheme. For instance, he said that UBEC, in collaboration with the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) produced and distributed one set of the new basic education curriculum to every public primary school in the country.From 2005 to date, he affirmed that a total of 19, 849 classrooms were constructed in various public primary schools across the country and 9, 056 others were renovated. About 863, 255 furniture items were supplied, 14, 871 toilets constructed and 366 boreholes sunk.His words: 'In addition to the provision of various types of instructional materials by the states and local governments, the federal government dedicated 15 per cent of the FGN-UBE Intervention Funds to the procurement of instructional materials with effect from 2009. Our target is to achieve a pupil to book ratio of 1:1 in each core subject at the primary school level. In addition, 2, 376 Science Kits were procured and distributed to some Junior Secondary schools nationwide.'He continued: 'Between 2005 and 2008, UBEC, in collaboration with the state Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs), pooled resources together to train 894, 836 teachers and education managers in the core subject areas, ICT, Guidance and Counselling as well as other subjects areas of peculiar needs to the SUBEBs. However, from 2009, capacity building for teachers was centralized as a result of the review of the sharing formula using 10 per cent of two per cent CRF. The commission trained 175, 767 teachers in 2009; 153, 920 in 2010, while the training of 185, 000 teachers for 2011 is being concluded.'The federal government introduced the Federal Teachers' Scheme (FTS) in 2006 to address problems associated with teacher shortage in the basic education sub-sector. This scheme is funded from the Federal Government's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) funds. So far, 105, 000 participants have enlisted for the scheme.'In view of the importance the commission attaches to the UBE Community-Initiated Self-Help Projects as a package that impacts positively on many school communities in the provision of infrastructure, furniture, renovation of dilapidated classrooms, the commission has disbursed support funds amounting to N28.4 billion.'Mohammed also revealed that the national personnel audit conducted by the commission in 2006 and 2010 for teaching and non-teaching staff in all public basic education institutions in Nigeria, revealed that there are a total of 59, 007 public primary schools in the country, with an enrolment figure of 20, 291, 709 pupils. There are also 11, 295 junior secondary schools with an enrolment of 4, 313, 164 students. 'While gender disparity between male and female is still wide in favour of the male in the northern states,' he stated, 'it is near parity in the southern states. The incidence of un-qualified teachers in still prevalent in the north, where those below the minimum teaching qualification constitute about 40 per cent. On the other hand, the percentage of unqualified teachers in the southern states is about 15 per cent.'The commission has also been collaborating with international development partners such as the British Council, China, South Korea and Japan.After exhaustive deliberations, participants observed that while UBEC deserves commendation, various challenges were militating against quality assurance in the UBE programme. They include inadequate number of qualified personnel, supply of infrastructure and learning materials; ineffective curricula delivery; high school drop-out rates; inadequate monitoring and evaluation in schools as a result of limited resources and inadequate funding of programmes and projects in states.The participants also argued that advocacy to increase access and community participation had been grossly inadequate and there had been lack of sustainable community and private sector participation in school governance.In the communiqu, participants recommended that in line with the additional mandate for UBEC, there should be a comprehensive amendment of the UBE Act (2004) to include funding and management of Senior Secondary/Unity Schools. The two per cent CRF, they argued, should be reviewed upwards 'to adequately take care of the new mandate.' Besides, they asserted that the new Act should 'specifically include the federal unity colleges as beneficiaries of UBE funds.'The communique also affirmed: 'the funds meant for Senior Secondary education should be disbursed to the entity that will be in charge of Senior Secondary education at the state level. All necessary procedures for amending the UBE Act should be completed before the end of 2012. The issue of quality in the system should be addressed through ' teacher capacity building; recruitment of qualified teachers and adherence to minimum standards; implementation of recommendations of Quality Assurance Officers after visits to schools''.
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