By Hassan Zaggi
The Cross River State State Universal Basic Education Board (CRSUBEB) has, in strong terms, debunked reports of alleged fraud in the agency during the stewardship of the immediate past Board.
Rather, the agency said the last Board should be commended for changing the story of schools in the state.
The Board explained that all contracts awarded during its tenure were executed through extant procurement laws and due processes.
This, it said, is contrary to a malicious report which alleged that contracts awarded for reconstruction of state-owned schools were left uncompleted while many others were executed using substandard materials.
In the performance report spanning 2015 to 2023 made available to journalists, the CRSUBEB highlighted the projects it executed which it said were sanctioned and monitored by the Universal Basic Education Board (UBEC), which partly funds primary education in the country.
“The last leadership executed 639 projects between 2015 to 2023 and completed them. These projects were all commissioned and handed over for use. A check in these schools will simply verify these claims,” the Board said.
It further explained that changing the face of primary education in the state did not stop at physical structure, as a result, it “invested heavily in capacity building and empowerment to instigate sound teaching methods among the teachers.
“We realised that physical structure, yes, were needed. The children needed to sit in comfortable and conducive learning environment. So we kickstarted the prioritisation of changing the state of state-owned schools from there.
“We also needed to balance the system by empowering and equipping the teachers with modern teaching techniques.
“To achieve that, periodic trainings were organised. Teachers were supported and encouraged to acquire additional qualifications.
“We also said technology must be introduced as part of the modern teaching and learning methods. So teachers had to be ICT-compliance. Almost all the teachers before the last Board left office acquired computer skills with many of them acquiring computers.”
The Board further disclosed that at resumption of the last management, it met a “lots of backlogs of matching grants that the state was unable to access,” but that “the governor, Ben Ayade, provided the needed access through the payment of counterpart funds to enable us achieve all the feats” of changing the story of primary education in the state.
“It noted that no local government in the state received lrss 40 projects from construction to rehabilitation of schools. These are verifiable.”
According to it, “The last Board, for instance, established the British-Canadian International School at Obudu, one of the best in the country; equipped schools in the state with teaching aids, seats and boosted the number of teachers with additional 2,500 teaching and non-teaching staff into Primary and UBEC Junior Secondary schools,” in the state.
“The game changer was the launch of the Accelerated Basic Education Programme in Nigeria (ABEP) for overage out-of-school children and youths in Nigeria. Cross River State keyed into the programme which led to the tremendous enrollment of children in schools.”
It said that: “The records are there to verify. The buildings are there. The pupils are there in school. It was on record that during the last board, the highest enrollment into primary school was set in the country.
“It’s therefore uncharitable not to commend the good work of the last Board as led by Dr Stephen Odey when reports by UBEC and other stakeholders in the education system adjudged his stewardship as the best among the 36 states in the country.
“Our doors are open for anyone to verify any claim. We must State categorically that there was no fraud in CRSUBEB and there’s no fraud.”
