Public schools need 1.1 million classrooms, 194,876 qualified teachers nationwide — UBEC

The Universal Basic Education Commission(UBEC) has revealed that both public primary and junior secondary schools in the country are faced with a shortage of 1. 1 million classrooms and 194,867 qualified teachers nationwide.

The agency also put students’ enrolment figure at this level of education as of 2023 at 33, 315, 654 nationwide.

The Executive Secretary of UBEC, Dr Hamid Bobboyi, made the revelations on Monday in Lagos at a one-day meeting held with the organised private sector on the implementation of the UBEC programme in Nigeria.

Bobboyi pointed out that the acute shortage of classrooms and qualified teachers in Nigeria’s public schools are not restricted to certain geo-political zones but worse in some than others, especially in the northern part of the country and also in the rural communities.

He also disclosed that apart from the huge shortage of classrooms and inadequate furniture, about 40 per cent of the existing ones are in bad shape and not conducive to effective learning, particularly in the northern region.

When comparing the public and private schools as regards teachers’ qualifications also at the basic education level, he said about 40 per cent of teachers in private schools nationwide are not qualified to be in classrooms while only 17 per cent are in public schools.

But in terms of classrooms and toilet availability and conditions, private schools are better off than public schools according to him.

Bobboyi said UBEC came up with these statistics through its latest National Personnel Audit carried out in the 2022\2023 academic year, using the learner\classroom and learner\teacher ratios as specified by the National Policy on Education.

According to him, there are huge gaps between what is required for Nigeria to operate functional and effective basic education and what is available in both public and private schools but many state governments are completely overwhelmed.

He said UBEC as an agency of the Federal Government had made significant efforts in responding to most of these gaps in public schools through its strategic programmes and projects which seek to address issues of access, quality, equity and inclusiveness in delivery.

But despite these interventions, he declared, most of the problems remain unsolved, hence, the essence of the meeting with the organised private sector participants.

Boboyyi suggested that UBEC strongly believes that it is very important that the state and local governments will need to be more committed to their responsibilities in basic education.

According to him, both tiers of government need to invest substantially in the sub-sector.

“The local government, for example, should be fully responsible for primary education while the state government should concentrate on secondary education.

“Similarly, the private sector partnership and collaboration are equally important and we would like the sector to support the government in this journey for the country to provide quality and quantitative basic education for every Nigerian child without exemption.

In her remark at the event, the Director of Basic Education, Federal Ministry of Education, Dr Folake Olatunji-Davis, acknowledged the huge gaps identified by the UBEC boss, saying that is the essence of calling for the support of private support.

According to her, the federal government is making and intensifying efforts to provide more robust basic education to every Nigerian child and that is why the current administration has come up with an agenda called “DOTS.”

According to her, each of the acronyms stands for specific issues bothering the direction to go to make things happen positively in the subsector. She said “D” stands for Data generation, “O” for Out-of-school children, “T” for Teachers recruitment and capacity development training and “S” stands for Skills acquisition programs.

She said she believes that the meeting with the private sector would go a long way in getting the operators’ commitment to join hands with the government to produce learners that will be competitive with their peers globally without leaving any child behind.

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