BEC renews commitment to quality basic education delivery

THE management of  Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has renewed its commitment towards ensuring quality basic education delivery in Nigeria.

UBEC Deputy Executive Secretary (Services), DrYakubuGambo, who spoke at a stakeholders’ meeting in Kaduna State, said the Commission was working hard to improve basic education delivery processes across the country.

He noted that some of the measures put in place were already yielding desirable results and paving way for the institutionalisation of meaningful interventions for better service delivery.

Gambo said some of these measures ranged from prudent resource utilisation, improved system governance and result oriented oversight functions, adding that UBEC had created the muchneeded conducive atmosphere as well as providing the necessary leadership and technical support to grassroots organs towards ensuring success in basic education programme implementation.

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He said the Kaduna meeting signalled a new beginning in the efforts of UBEC towards harnessing Universal Basic Education (UBE) inputs and processes in a manner that ensured the attainment of maximum impact in programme implementation.

He noted that the newly developed quality assurance framework addresses specific concerns relating to how UBE service delivery is supervised especially at the State and Local Government Area (LGEA) levels and would lead to improved quality assurance in UBE programme implementation.

The meeting identified key challenges inhibiting quality assurance in UBE delivery to include lack of budgetary allocation for quality assurance activities and low capacity of quality assurance personnel.

Gambo, however, used the opportunity offered by the meeting to inform participants that the Federal Government had allocated two  per cent of UBEC’s operational fund for quality assurance.

He said this was a fundamental step towards improving the funding arrangement and ensuring the institutionalisation of a robust, functional, comprehensive, sustainable, effective, and efficient quality assurance system at the SUBEB and LGEA levels.

“The newly instituted funding arrangement seeks to empower quality assurance personnel at all levels in the conduct of quality assurance related field work,” he stated.

He said the renewed interest and commitment to reinvigorating the quality assurance process in the basic education sub-sector through the well thought-  out framework and improved funding was bound to impact positively on all aspects of school life.