FROM the Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr. Ahmed Modibo Mohammed, came the cheering news at the weekend, that Nigeria now stands a good chance of meeting the 2015 Education for All (EFA) target, if the current tempo by state governments to improve basic education is sustained throughout the country. However, one sure way of achieving the target, according to him, is by ensuring that teachers are adequately taken care of and respected across the country. But Mohammed also dispelled the rumours making the rounds in certain quarters, that the almajiri education initiative could promote Islamic fundamentalism in a secular Nigeria, arguing instead that the initiative was the best and only way to prevent the perceived danger. Mohammed, who spoke on a wide range of issues in an exclusive interview with The Guardian in Port Harcourt, Rivers State during the quarterly meeting of chairmen of the states Universal Basic Education Boards, also affirmed that more states have now accessed their UBE funds, following a meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan at the end of which a major concession was given. He explained: by the middle of 2010, we were confronted with a situation whereby we had over N40 billion that was still not accessed by the states, and Mr. President became very worried. He directed the Minister of Education and the Minister of Finance to sit down with governors to find out how best to their states could be assisted to access these funds. The ministers met with the governors, after which a presentation was made to the National Economic Council. It was then agreed that Mr. President could direct that the (UBE) funds be moved (from the Central Bank) to commercial banks, where the state governments could leverage on the availability of their funds to obtain counterpart funds needed to meet the requirement of the law. I am glad to say that, at least, over 12 states have leveraged on that and have made their counterpart funds available. Lagos provided its counterpart fund of about N1.6 billion, Taraba and Gombe made about N800 million available. Plateau has just provided about N1.9 billion, Osun has also provided over a billion naira. We are now waiting for the necessary Action Plans, so that funds can be released for them to implement basic education. But Mohammed, in a passionate plea, urged state governments to take the issue of teachers conditions of service seriously. He referred to the Rivers State government, which, he noted, has set a good example of how to take good care of teachers.His words: I want to see a situation whereby the state governments will stop paying lip service to the working conditions of teachers. In Rivers State, we saw the staff quarters, which the state government is building for their secondary school teachers. I can assure you that these staff quarters are well built, well furnished with leather seats in their living rooms, to the extent that some SUBEB chairmen said they dont mind becoming classroom teachers in Rivers State. That is how it should be.Worried about the practice among the states not to employ teachers, who are nonindigenes, the UBEC boss said: we want to see a situation where there is no discrimination in the recruitment of teachers. There is now a policy whereby states discourage recruiting permanent and pensionable people (teachers), who are non-indigenes. There was a time when we were recruiting Indians, Ghanaians and other foreigners to teach in our schools. There is no reason why we cannot give Nigerians permanent and pensionable appointments to teach anywhere in this country. Modibbo also decried the habit by some states of recruiting unqualified persons as primary school teachers. I am also worried that there are still many states, especially in the North East and North West geopolitical zones, where they unfortunately still recruit secondary school leavers to teach, even when there are unemployed NCE holders. State governors should please call the Local Education Authorities and Local Government chairmen to order, because unfortunately, the constitution makes it the responsibility of local governments to recruit teachers at that (basic) level. So long as this issue is not addressed, we will keep on having low quality teachers in the system. No matter how beautiful your classrooms are and no matter how wonderful you provide instructional materials, if the quality of teachers is not looked into, you are still going to have problems. We should support the recruitment of teachers on permanent and pensionable basis from wherever they come from in this country. Once this is done, with the support of state and federal government to provide continuous professional development of teachers, you would see a revolution in the educational sector in the country. On the training of teachers, Mohammed explained that in the past, states were allowed to handle teacher training and capacity building. But from last year, he stated, UBEC centralised the concept by engaging tertiary institutions to handle trainings on behalf of the states. He gave the reasons: We found out that the manuals used for the training were not uniform in standards. Some just merely gave handouts, some gave good training manuals, while other people didnt even use any manuals. So, what we did was to develop a standardised training manual in collaboration with the United Kingdom Open University, the National Teachers Institute (NTI) and some education experts. It is available online. We have adopted that and we are asking states to, from the beginning of this year, start using the standardised training manuals, because we believe if teachers attend the one week training workshop and go with the manual, it will go a long way in enabling them to not only remember what they have done, they can also use it to improve other teachers that did not attend the training. Mohammed also spoke on the controversial Almajiri education programme. Some stakeholders have expressed fears that the concept could encourage Islamic fundamentalism, which could in turn escalate the religious crises that occur occasionally in some northern parts of the country. But Mohammed dispelled such fears, insisting that the programme would, on the contrary, prevent religious crisis.It will not promote any (Islamic) fundamentalism as such, he assured. There are two things: one, it the infusion of basic education into Islamic education and then, you are also infusing skill acquisition into the programme. We have had workshops and seminars with leading Islamic scholars and traditional rulers. We have had interactions with the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). The Almajiri Implementation Committee has met with all these major stakeholders, particularly CAN, and they have supported the programme. I can assure you that it is not going to breed any fundamentalism, rather, its going to make sure that our children acquire good education, so that we can avoid the tragedy that is now sweeping through some north African Arab countries. Mohammed also warned that the danger inherent in not educating the Almajiri far outweighs the fears being expressed in certain quarters. He revealed that over 9.9 million Almajiri children across some 15 northern states would benefit from the initiative. His words: the Federal Government has massively built over 31 boarding and day secondary schools specifically for the Almajiris, through the Education Trust Fund (ETF) and our own intervention. We (UBEC) are building nearly 100 schools for the Almajiris. It has never happened in the history of this country. Indeed, scholars who specialise in memorising the Quran paid a courtesy visit to Mr. President, congratulating him and saying that they have been waiting for this (Almajiri education programme) for the past 50 years and it is just happening now. I think it is a major achievement in basic education. If you institutionalise the integration of the Almajiris or out of school children into basic education, I think we would have done a great service for the country. On the achievements recorded by UBEC last year, Mohammed said the year enjoyed reasonable peace and undisrupted academic calendar. He submitted that with the federal governments support, UBEC massively distributed textbooks in Mathematics, English and Science subjects. We expect the states to provide for the other two subjects, so that every child would have a textbook from Primary 1 to Primary 5. He continued: in 2010, the Federal Government awarded contracts worth over N20 billion to procure textbooks directly through the UBE intervention and through the MDGs. The MDGs earlier in the year made a sum of N4 billion available and towards the end of the year (2010), another N5.2 billion was made available. The UBE intervention is over N10 billion. We are talking of a textbook initiative of close to N20 billion and that is massive. It has never happened before in this country. With that, and the capacity building initiatives for teachers, improvement in infrastructure, you would definitely begin to record a steady improvement in teaching and learning, and of course the learning achievement of pupils will begin to improve. On Early Child Care and Development Education (ECCDE), Mohammed affirmed that there was already a national policy on it, just as he noted that the Federal Ministry of Education had established models centres in Abuja. Commissioners of Education and SUBEB chairmen have been urged to go and see these model centres and try as much as possible to establish at least on ECCDE class in every school. The UBEC boss also shed some light on the Special Education Fund, currently being disbursed by the Federal Government to states. The Special Education Fund is two per cent of the two per cent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund we get from the Federal Government, he revealed. We provide this as un-conditional grant to states, that is, they (states) dont require any counterpart fund (to get these funds). We give them because, again, the world is moving towards inclusive education.Here in Nigeria, there are children, who have special physical challenges. So we try to provide them a conducive environment where they can learn and improve themselves. We also support NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations) that provide education to this special category of children. So, we are asking states to come forward to establish schools to cater for this category of children. Also, the little that the federal government is giving to them (states), they should account for it, so that they can access their funds in order to improve this category of Nigerian children. On prospects for UBEC this year, Mohammed expressed optimism. I see bright prospects,he assured. There is determination and collaboration between our international development partners and UBEC. Everybody is partnering with us to develop the capacity of teachers. Governors are increasingly coming forward to access their funds and providing their counterpart funds. We are moving towards the attainment of the EFA goals. If by 2015, we miss the target of attaining the goals by 100 per cent, I can assure you that it will be by a very small margin.
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