By Benson Ezugwu
Calabar – The Cross River Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) says it has distributed 85,000 textbooks in various subjects to all the primary schools in the state.
The Chairman of the board, Dr Stephen Odey, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Calabar on Sunday.
Odey said that the board had also acquired 778 magnetic boards and dusters for distribution to the schools.
He said that 51,000 additional plastic chairs had also been distributed to the school.
The chairman, who spoke on the achievements of the board in 2016, said that the measure was to ensure qualitative primary education in the state.
“This is the first time teachers will not be using black boards to teach,” he said.
He further said that in its effort to reinvigorate sports in primary schools in the state, the board had acquired 662 sets of tennis tables from Germany.
“This is our own way of encouraging sporting activities in the schools. We want to encourage other sports apart from football.
“Table tennis is one of such sports and we will start distributing the items this month,” he said.
Odey announced that the board had released letters of award of contracts for 237 projects to the contractors who emerged through an open bidding process.
The chairman said that the process was in line with the board’s policy of transparency and accountability.
He said the board’s activities had been guided by laid down procedures and action plans in line with the Universal Basic Education Board (UBEC) laws.
The chairman said that the implementation of the board’s policies was also subject to the approval of the governor.
Odey said that the board had not misused the N7.5 million matching grant it got from the UBEB as believed in some quarters.
He commended Gov. Ben Ayade for his prompt intervention in the affairs of the board which had resulted in improvement in the basic education system in the state.
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