The Executive Secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Aisha Garba, has called for more collaborations with education actors to address the challenges of basic education in the country.
Garba was speaking in Abuja on Monday, at a three-days workshop of UBEC management with Commissioners of Education and Executive Chairmen of State Universal Basic Education (SUBEBs)
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop is designed to provide a platform for robust discussions, integrations and transformative initiative of addressing education challenges.
The workshop brought together SUBEB Chairmen and Commissioners of Education from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Garba explained that there was need to build the country’s education, by ensuring effective collaboration at national and state levels, within the education sector, and beyond.
“This workshop provided us with a unique opportunity to collectively evaluate our progress so far, identify challenges, and chart a new path towards achieving our shared goal of effective basic education.
“While I acknowledge all the progress made in advising basic education over the decades, it is still imperative that we address still the persistent challenges Nigeria still has -one of the highest number of out-of-schools.
“Nigeria still has poor quality of education, especially at the basic level.
” We must work together to address these challenges in the issue of financing for basic education, infrastructure, quality of education, ensuring well-being and accessibility of learning material.
“We must address shortage of teachers, and work together to improve the school infrastructure for conducive teaching and learning environment,” she said.
Garba maintained that the underlining demand and supply challenges of education was as a result of weak coordination and partnership between critical stakeholders.
“We must collaborate between both UBEC, private sector stakeholders, development partners, civil society and communities to address this giant task,” she added.
On his part, the Dean of Chairmen and Kwara State SUBEEB chairman, Shehu Adaramaja, called on SUBEB chaiemen to uphold best practices aimed at significantly improving the learning outcomes in schools.
Adaramaja appealed to Chairmen to imbibe the
transformative initiative of President Ahmed Tinubu towards the eradication of out-of-school phenomenon in Nigeria.
While charging participants to keep abreast of the 2007 procurement act and that ‘ignorance of law is not an excuse, advised on proper documentation of all transactions in the state.
“Today’s meeting, like any other quarterly meetings, aims to discuss the challenges and solutions in the basic education sector.
“I am confident that our discussions today will dwell on the strategies to enhance quality of basic education and initiatives to improve the effectiveness of our schools across the country,” he said.
Declaring the workshop opened, the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa assured Federal Government’s commitment to promoting quality education, with strong emphasis on prioritising qualitative basic education.
Represented by his Senior Special Adviser, Dr Ismaila Adiatu, the Minister said a committee had been set up to outline the process for categorising schools for areas of urgent interventions.
“Mr President has directed all stakeholders in the basic education sub-sector to work towards returning children back to the classroom thus decreasing the number of out-of-school children.
“The President emphasises the need for schools to be equipped with appropriate skills development programms aimed at fostering creativity and research, starting from early education,” he said.
He urged participants to come up with outcomes that would lead to quality basic education implementation and strategies for effective monitoring and evaluation of learning activities towards the realisation of the 2030 education agenda. (NAN)
