Economic Hardship, Insecurity Are Hampering Recorded Successes – UBEC Says
BY TEMI OHAKWE, ABUJA – The Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr Hamid Bobboyi, has said that insecurity and economic hardship are major threat to successes recorded in the basic education sector.
Bobboyi, who stated this while decrying some of the challenges facing basic school delivery in parts of the country, noted that insecurity and economic hardship constitute the major threat.
The UBEC boss noted that the challenges of insecurity and social economic crisis are now compelling parents to engage their children for pursuits such as hawking, child labor, begging and farming, hence increasing the rate of Out of School Children and contributing to social menace.
According to Bobboyi; “Despite the success recorded in the Basic Education sub-sector, the sector is faced with some challenges like insecurity in some states which slowed down school construction and sometimes result in destruction of completed projects or abandonment of projects.
“Parents are engaging their children for economic pursuits such as hawking, child labor, begging and farming thus increasing the rate of Out of School Children and contributing to social menace.
“Other challenges include the inability of some states to demonstrate the will power in the provision of adequate budget for running of UBE programme thereby, slows down access to the FGN-UBE matching grants, vandalization of schools and theft of School facilities and equipment.
“Also the use of school as emergency rehabilitation centers e.g. IDPs camps, security camp, inadequate teacher commitment to the profession, politicization of basic education in its management administration and supply of data and weak school governance among others,” he said.
The UBEC Executive Secretary, who was represented by the Deputy Executive Service Secretary (Technical), Dr. Bala Zakari raised these concerns when the Senior Executive Course 43, of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) 2021 paid a courtesy visit to the agency.
