The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has set aside the sum of N2 billion for the conduct of the 2022 National Personnel Audit (NPA), in all basic education institutions involving the public, private and mission schools across the country.
Executive Secretary of UBEC, Dr Hamid Bobboyi, who made this known in Abuja, on Tuesday, while briefing newsmen on the commencement of the 2022 National Personnel Audit, explained that the school census would be carried out
in two phases in Southern and Northern States respectively.
He noted that the first phase, which is the Southern Phase consisted of the 17 States in the South-East, South-South and South-West geopolitical zones had commenced on Monday, 6 and would end on Saturday, June 25, 2022.
The Northern Phase covers 19 states and the FCT commences on July 4 and ends on Saturday, July 23, 2022.
Bobboyi explained that the money approved was a segmented budget, as certain aspects of the preparation for the census had been carried since last year by some departments, hiring of boats to get to hard to reach areas, payment of allowances to enumerators drawn from UBEC staff and other partnering agencies, equipment for enumerators, building of geospatial data, and other logistics required for the smooth conduct of the exercise.
Bobboyi acknowledged that the absence of credible data had remained a major challenge in basic education implementation for a long time.
He said: “Since the introduction of the UBE programme, a lot of ground has been covered. More schools have been built, enrolment has grown and more teachers have been recruited and trained.
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“Despite these, there is still a lot that needs to be done. The absence of credible data had remained a major challenge in basic education implementation for a long time.
“School data is supposed to flow up from the school level but our schools lack the facility and the personnel to generate and transmit data. As a result of this planning had relied on estimates and, sometimes, incomplete data.
“The Commission attempted to address this challenge by conducting personnel audit in schools. The 2006 and 2010 exercises were limited in scope as they dealt with only public schools. A more comprehensive exercise was conducted in 2018, extending to cover both public and private institutions.
“The data generated from the exercise was generally accepted as credible. However, this was only truly valid for the period when the data was collected. If it is to continue to be useful as a planning tool, it has to be regularly updated.
“The 2022 personnel audit should therefore be seen in the light of updating the basic education database created in 2018. It is also a fulfilment of the mandate of the Commission,” he said.
According to Dr Bobboyi, during the exercise, enumerators will visit all basic education institutions in the country, the public, private, approved, unapproved, registered and unregistered will all be visited.
The enumerators are expected to collect basic information on schools including number of teachers and pupils, children living with disabilities, infrastructure available, enrolment and transition and peculiar challenges being faced by each institution visited.
He added that the NPA exercise has no ulterior motive stressing that data being collected would assist the country to plan effectively towards the expansion of access to quality education and promoting gender parity at basic and other levels of education.
“On the 2022 NPA the commission is in partnership with relevant government agencies, development partners and NGOs, National Bureau of Statistics, National Population Commission, Nigeria Air Space Research and Development Agency, Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Association of private school owners, the World Bank, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF),” he listed among others.
Earlier, the Chairman of the 2022 NPA, Prof. Bala Zakari, said the Commission had generated list of basic schools in each Local Government Areas from State Universal Basic Education to address issues of hard to reach areas and places facing security challenges.
“We must acknowledge that there is no area where human activity can be 100 per cent perfect,” Prof. Zakari said.
While urging school owners and other stakeholders to cooperate with the enumerators, Zakari said that denial of 2022 NPA team access to schools will further contribute to the increasing number of out of school children in the country as the children in such schools would be presumed not being in school.
“The NPA exercise is out to ensure that all existing learning centres will be counted along with available facilities in the schools we believe it will help partners in their intervention plans and will serve as database for the basic education institutions in Nigeria.”
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UBEC earmarks N2bn for 2022 nationwide schools’ personnel audit
UBEC earmarks N2bn for 2022 nationwide schools’ personnel audit
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