Basic education, foundation for sustainable development — UBEC

Dr Hamid Bobboyi, the Executive Secretary of Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), says attaining quality basic education is the foundation upon which sustainable development lies.

Bobboyi said this during a two-day meeting of UBEC management with the executive chairmen of State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEB), on Monday in Abuja.

The Executive Secretary said the meeting afforded an opportunity for them to come together and fashion out effective ways of tackling the challenges facing basic education sub-sector in the country.

He noted that basic education was very important and had to become the concern of all Nigerians.

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“Public awareness is increasing, we must work hard to ensure accountability in all our transactions because many people now realise that they have a stake in the education of the Nigerian child.

“We have a lot in our hands to attain, and must attain the Universal Basic Education (UBE) target in the area of access to quality basic education,’’ he said.

He told the meeting it was imperative for all hands to be on deck in seeking solutions to mitigate the challenges in the subsector with a view to making necessary adjustments for optimal performance.

He further said that basic education was strategic to human capital development hence the need to continuously re-examine and reaffirm their modus operandi in the sub-sector.

While addressing newsmen on the sideline of the meeting on what it hoped to achieve, Bobboyi said that the UBEC management had not met for some time with the SUBEB Chairmen since 2019.

He attributed the reason to political activities of 2019, and now they had new chairmen, returning chairmen and many developments within the basic education sector.

He said they needed to come together to discuss the current challenges in basic education and also how they hoped to make impacts in the sector.

He said the challenges had always been there, and mentioned the issue of junior secondary school articulation, and functional problems such as access to basic education among others.

According to him, the chairmen have to collaborate with the local government education authorities on the issue of responsibility of parents and the responsibilities of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

He added that the responsibilities also bordered on the need to take parents to court if they were not sending their children to school, which was something that had been neglected.

He said they had been working to also ensure that the UBEC laws were respected and implemented.

Prof. Gidado Tahir, a participant and past Executive Secretary of the commission, said they needed to develop a clear objective of resolving some key issues confronting the commission.

He said many people such as parents, guardians, associations, schools and management boards among others should be involved in implementing the UBEC objectives.

“I think that is where our concern lies, who is supposed to bring all these people together on the direction to go,’’ he said.

The highlight of the event was the presentation of issues and challenges for effective delivery of basic education in Nigeria made by Prof. Tahir and Prof. Charles Onocha.

NAN