UBEC set for National Basic Education sector plan

The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) says it will have a National Basic Education Sector Plan by October to help in educational planning process.

Dr Hamid Bobboyi, the executive secretary of the commission, disclosed this at a news conference in Abuja last week Monday.

“For a long time, we have had the under role planning process; the issue that we raised from day one is that as a nation, it is very difficult to make progress on this type of planning.

“How do we as UBEC and as SUBEBs put our heads together to ensure that we have those kinds of strategic plans that can move the basic education sector forward?

“I am very happy to say that by end of September, we are going have a national basic education sector plan that can move the basic education sector forward.

“I think this is important for us as a nation to be able to put in all those key elements that we need to succeed within the basic education sector.

“It was also a bottom-up approach. It was not that we sit in UBEC, or sit in Abuja and determine what the states need; it is the states that will have to tell us their challenges at the local level.

“There are certain foundations we need to push, if we miss these foundations, we will just keep groping in the dark for a long period of time. Data is crucial to having cogent plans.”

He said the commission had received support from the National Bureau of Statistics, National Population Commission and other partners in driving the process.

The UBEC executive secretary said the Ministry of Education had approved N3 billion for the commission for the rehabilitation of the basic education sub-sector in the North-East.

He said the money would be used for the rehabilitation of school infrastructure affected by insurgency as well as building of vocational and skill acquisition centres for women that left school due to the insurgency.