By Felix Khanoba
The National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) Kuru has commended the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) for progress recorded in the basic education sub-sector despite some of the daunting challenges.
The leader of NIPSS delegation, Prof. Fatai Aremu, made this known when he led a team of participants of the Senior Executive Course 43, 2021 and some Senior Staff of the National Institute to UBEC.
He said the visit was to enable the participants to interact with relevant members of UBEC Management on Conceptual and Theoretical Foundation of Policy and Programme Implementation in UBEC. Other areas of interaction during the study visit includes, frameworks for policy and programme implementation in UBEC, stakeholders in Policy and programme implementation performance in UBEC, a comprehensive analysis on policy and programme implementation in UBEC, options and strategies among other things.
A statement made available to The AUTHORITY on Sunday and signed by David Apeh, Head, Public Relations/ Protocol of UBEC, said the leader of the delegation revealed that the study focuses on “Strategies for Policy and Programme Implementation in Nigeria. ”
He stressed that the Commission was selected as one of the strategic institutions of relevance for the engagement.
Earlier, the Executive Secretary UBEC, Dr. Hamid Bobboyi in his welcome address said despite the success recorded in the Basic Education sub-sector, the sector is faced with some challenges like insecurity in some states which slowed down school construction and sometimes result in destruction of completed projects or abandonment of projects.
Bobboyi, who was represented by the Deputy Executive Service Secretary (Technical) Dr. Bala Zakari said parents are engaging their children for economic pursuits such as hawking, child labor, begging and farming thus increasing the rate of Out of School Children and contributing to social menace.
Other challenges according to the Executive Secretary include inability of some states to demonstrate will power in the provision of adequate budget for running of UBE programme in states, slow accessing of the FGN-UBE matching grants, vandalization of schools and theft of School facilities and equipment.
Also the use of school as emergency rehabilitation centers, example: IDP, camps, security camps, inadequate teacher commitment to the profession, politicization of basic education in its management administration and supply of data and weak school governance, among others.
