A civil society organization in Ebonyi State has called for the amendment of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Act and a timely release of the UBE counterpart funding.
The group also seek an increase in the budgetary allocation to education for primary and secondary levels as Education makes it possible for individuals to access other human rights.
The Civil Society Organizations led by the Executive Director of Development and Integrity Intervention Goal (DIG) Mr Oliver Chima Ajah disclosed this while paying an advocacy visit to the Commissioner for Education, Dr Sunday Nwangene and other stakeholders on primary education in the State.
The group also demand the involvement of Citizens and CSOs in the monitoring of educational projects as they frown at the numerous challenges detected in the educational sector including teachers’ lack of capacity to carry out functions in the schools.
“Stakeholders do not have adequate knowledge on who is in custody of the funds meant for UBE interventions in the state.
“Stakeholders who are teachers complained of not being carried along in the decisions around the UBEC within Ebonyi.
“Non-reliability of the information on the UBEC in the state.
“State government decides where to set up a UBE project and not based on needs assessment”
Chima noted that active engagement and participation of citizens in the state (UBE) processes through the institutionalization of citizens’ participation and engagement, will increase the funding for basic education from 2% to at least 3%.
“We all know that the right to basic education is a fundamental human right recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which was ratified by Nigeria in 1991.
“USAID SCALE AGGE cluster is embarking on an advocacy campaign to unlock additional resources to education by working to amend the UBE Act, increase financing for basic education, and ensure accountability and good governance.
“The AGGE cluster is also concerned about the rate of out-of-school children in Nigeria recorded at 10.5 million, which is said to be the highest in the World. Of equal concern is the safety, affordability, and accessibility of quality basic education in Nigeria, especially, the public schools.
“We believe education is the bedrock of economic prosperity, thus, the alarming out-of-school children deprive a larger percentage of the young population to contribute to community/larger society.
“Part of the project activities was research and the result of the research conducted shows that in Ebonyi State
”According to our research in Ebonyi, Teachers in schools lack the capacity to carry out their functions, Stakeholders do not have adequate knowledge on who is in custody of the funds meant for UBE interventions in the state and Stakeholders who are teachers complained of not being carried along in the decisions around the UBEC within the State.
“We further discovered Non-reliability of the information on the UBEC in the state as the State government decides where to set up a UBE project and not based on needs assessment.”
Chima however, informed the state government that YouthHubAfrica (Anchor) and four other organizations (Cluster members) are implementing a project titled “Accountability for Good Governance in Education (AGGE)” with the support of the USAID Palladium’s SCALE intervention.
He added that the project will focus on enhancing good governance in the education sector through transparency and accountability in the work plan of the states’ UBEC adding that the disbursement and implementation of the funds for Ebonyi, FCT, kwara, Kebbi and Kano states will be by the end of 2023.
Commissioner for Education receiving the CSO team lauded DIG and other partners for working to promote Universal Basic Education through their committed advocacy to unlock additional resources for Education in the State.
“Issue of increment in the funding of education sector, again I refer to the central government with thanks for existing UBE and UBEC that is directly the mandate of the National Assembly to amend the act, solicit for the increment and percentage and also join the federal government to source for the funding prescribe where the funding will come and that when that is done, Ebonyi people will attempt to be the first state because of the Goodwill of the governor to education as a whole in education to be like one in the western states”.