3Bln Naira Set Aside For Basic Education Rehabilitation In Northeast
The education sector has suffered significant setback in Nigeria’s northeast due to the onslaught by Boko Haram, but UBEC is determined to end the rot
Boko Harm’s self acclaimed primary assignment is to end the gospel of western education in Nigeria.
Over the years of terror in the region, thousands of children have fled their communities and schools while others were abducted, brainwashed and converted.
The Nigerian government has regained most territories and there are efforts aimed at rebuilding communities and re-opening schools.
In the meantime, the Ministry of Education in Nigeria has approved 3 billion Naira for the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) to rehabilitate schools.
The Executive Secretary of UBEC, Hamid Bobboyi, told a press conference in Abuja on Monday that the money would cater for the building of vocational and skill acquisition centres for girls (turned women) that left school due to the insurgency.
Having a National Basic Education Sector Plan is one thing that UBEC is looking forward to.
For years there has been no National Basic Education Sector Plan. What was operational was ‘under role planning process’.
UBEC is looking to have the plan ready by October. Bobboyi believes the initiative would suffice.
“The issue that we raised from day one is that as a nation it is very difficult to make progress on this type of planning.
“How do we as UBEC, as SUBEBS put our heads together to ensure that we have those kinds of strategic plans that can move the basic education sector forward.
“I am very happy to say that by end of September we are going have a national basic education sector plan that can move the basic education sector forward.
“I think this is important for us as nation to be able to put in all those key elements that we need to succeed within the basic education sector.
“It was also a bottom-up approach. It was not that we sit in UBEC, or sit in Abuja and determine that is what the states need. It is the states that will have to tell us from their own challenges at the local level.
“There are certain foundations we need to push, if we miss these foundations we will just keep groping in the dark for a long period of time,” he explained.
