26th April, 2018
The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) says the 2018 National Personnel Audit of all basic education institutions in the country will begin on April 29.
Dr Hamid Bobboyi, Executive Secretary, UBEC, disclosed this while briefing newsmen in Abuja on Thursday.
He said that the audit would cover all pupils, students and personnel in both public and private basic education institutions in Nigeria.
Bobboyi said lack of data was a major setback in the education sector, however, the audit would help to create a comprehensive and reliable basic education data bank in Nigeria.
He said the commission since its inception had carried out two personnel audits of all public basic education institutions in 2006 and 2010.
Bobboyi noted that the personnel audit which the commission was empowered by the UBE Act 2004 to carry out would for the first time include private basic education institutions.
“I think this is what is going to give us a good hand on some of those crucial issues in terms of qualified and unqualified teachers in the system.
“It will also give us the distribution within the various parts of the country where we have problems.
“It will give us an idea of the number of students in our basic education institutions.
“We wish to include the secondary schools but by law, we are not mandated to do that.
“This audit will give us a hope and a promise that we should do this more regularly, the law says at regular intervals.
“My hope is that every three years we should be able to undertake this exercise so we can get a very good idea of what is going on in our basic education sub sector.’’
Bobboyi listed some specific objectives of the personnel audit to include obtaining reliable data of children of school going age enrolled in basic education schools.
Other objectives include obtaining the number and qualification of teaching and non-teaching staff including their personal information and progression in service.
It would also take account of the existing basic education administrative and management personnel.
He said the exercise would also provide authentic school mapping of all basic education schools in the country as well as address the challenges of inadequate education data.
He said these were for the purpose of effective planning and implementation of programmes in the sub sector.
“The exercises will provide reliable data for assessing the impact and achievement of the sub sector in the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals and feed the acquired data into the national data bank for global reporting.
Bobboyi noted that the collaboration with the media for the successful conduct of the exercise could not be overemphasized.
He said the media had always been in the forefront of publicising various indices related to basic education delivery.
He said the media would be expected to show committed interest and give credibility to the exercise by monitoring field activities in their domains.
“The media should also collaborate with UBEC, SUBEBS and Local Government Education Authorities in reporting on the conduct of the exercise; provide specialised advocacy through editorials and syndicated reportage.
“ We hope by the time we complete the exercise and get the data, the media will help in disseminating the results of the exercise.
Rev. Edwin Jarumai, Chairman of the National Planning Committee, in his remarks said the exercise would be undertaken in two phases.
He said the exercise would commence in all the states of the three Geo-political zones in the southern part of the country from April 29 to May 27.
Jarumai, who is also the Director, Administration and Supplies, UBEC, added that the second phase would be conducted in all states of the three Geo-political zones in the northern part of the country from June 3 to June 30.
He said the exercise would be carried out by 725 personnel who include staff of UBEC and collaborative partners.
Jarumai listed some of the collaborative partners to include National Population Commission, National Bureau of Statistics, National Commission for Nomadic Education and National Commission for Mass Literacy.
Others are National Teachers’ Institute and National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools, Nigerians Educational Research and Development Council, National Commission for Colleges of Education, Ministry of Budget and National Planning.
Also, the Media, CSOs, international development partners and community based organisation were parts of the collaborative partners.
He said staff of UBEC and staff of collaborating agencies had been trained by the National Space Research and Development Agency on the use of GPS.
He said these would enable them get to the coordinators of the schools and to ensure the field workers get to every school.
Jarumai added that they were also trained on the use of laptops to upload the data collected straight to the server.
He said the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, would flag off the exercise on April 30 to demonstrate what the field officer will be doing.