UBEC to Audit Public, Private Basic Education Institutions
The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) is set to conduct a comprehensive audit of all public and private basic education institutions in the country to obtain a reliable data of both the personnel and students.
The Executive Secretary of UBEC, Mr. Hammid Bobboyi, who disclosed this while briefing journalists ahead of the forthcoming National Personnel Audit exercise, said the audit would be carried out in conjunction with state and local governments and will entail personnel audit of teaching and non-teaching staff of all basic education institutions in Nigeria.
He added that the exercise will enable the commission to obtain comprehensive and reliable data of children of school age enrolled in basic education schools and those in primary and junior secondary schools.
“We successfully carried out a personnel audit of public basic education institutions in Nigeria in 2006 and the last one was done in 2010. The reports of these audits are already in public domain.”
He said the audit was meant to be carried out every three years in reference to the UBEC Act, 2004 section 9f and (l), so as to establish a basic education data bank and conduct research on basic education in Nigeria.
Bobboyi hinted that the exercise is coming at a time when the government is making each state to have its own strategic plan.
“We need to have a strategic plan that will guide basic education in each state. About 34 states have submitted their reports, we have three outstanding states. When the whole report is submitted, we would be able to roll out activities that are well detailed for each state.”
He stressed that if the foundation of basic education is not strong enough, “we cannot develop the kind of human resource that is needed to build the society. The audit exercise will enable us to identify the needs of each school and also develop proper policies that will boost the education sector. We will look at areas that are underdeveloped and look for means of bridging the gap.”
While speaking on the number of out of school children in Nigeria, he said the commission may not be able to give the exact number of the students, as the number keeps fluctuating from time to time.
“We discovered that in the north-eastern part of the country, most of the children are now going back to school and this is indeed a great development for the country.”
Also speaking, the Chairman of the National Personnel Audit Programme, Rev. Edwin Jerome said the commission will raise the standard of public education with the exercise, adding that it wants to ensure that quality education is maintained in public schools at all times.
While speaking on the level of preparedness for the audit, he said the high level monitoring team will be led by the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu. “Other members of the team will include UBEC governing board and management, senate and house committee on basic education and committee on SDGs. External monitors will be involved in monitoring the field activities in states, as well as stakeholders in the education sector and international development partners.”
The audit will be undertaken in two phases; the first phase will be conducted in all states of the three geopolitical zones in the southern part of the country from April 29 to May 26, 2018.