ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – The Federal Government has deployed over 725 enumerators comprising staff of Universal Basic Education Commission and other supporting agencies for a nationwide personnel audit of teaching and non-teaching staff of all basic education institutions in Nigeria.
Executive Secretary of UBEC, Dr Hamid Bobboyi, who made this known on Thursday in Abuja at news conference, said the school census would kick off from the southern states on 29th April, 2019 and last for two months.
He lamented that a major setback in the implementation of Universal Basic Education (UBE), was lack of reliable data for planning, saying most of the figures bandied about on basic education were mere assumptions and could not assist the government in addressing the challenges being faced in the sub-sector.
He said one of the specific objectives of the 2018 National Personnel Audit was to conduct a more comprehensive audit of all public and private basic education institutions in the country in order to obtain reliable data.
Bobboyi, noted that the last exercises conducted in 2006 and 2010 did not include private schools, adding that this year’s census would be holistic in order to get the true picture of the state of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCDE), primary and junior secondary education in the country.
The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) is empowered by the UBE Act, 2004 Section 9(f) and (I) to carry out in concert with the states and local governments at regular intervals, “a personnel audit of teaching and non-teaching staff of all basic education in Nigeria”.
Bobboyi said government was also worried about high number of unqualified teachers in the school system, stressing that the personnel audit, would obtain comprehensive and reliable data in the category of persons including pupils, students and personnel in public and private basic education institutions across the nation.
The Executive Secretary said: “The Universal Basic Education Commission is empowered to establish a basic education data bank and conduct research on basic education in Nigeria.
“Without the audit, we will continue to grope on challenges and implement policies that are not related to the problems on ground.
“We need data and good statistics to support strategic plan for the development of education because no can be implemented without data,” he said.
While speaking on the sustainability of the exercise, Bobboyi, said the plan of the Commission was to ensure that it is conducted every 3 years to aid effective planning, clarifying that the national personnel audit programme otherwise called school census was not about taxation (financial audit) for private basic schools but to count everybody within the basic education sector.
He noted that the Commission with the collaboration of the National Space Research and Development Agency has trained its staff on the use of Geographical Information System (GPS) to get proper coordinates of schools and their locations, adding that the Commission introduced use of smart technology to fast-track electronic enrolment of personnel and other core aspect of the school census programme.
Speaking on Implementation structure, the Chairman of the audit exercise and Director of Personnel Administration of UBEC, Mr Edwin Jerome, said the exercise will hold between 29th of April and June 30th.
He disclosed that the first phase f the exercise would be conducted in all states of the 3 geopolitical zones in the southern part of the country from April 29th and May 27th of this year, while the second phase would be conducted in all three geopolitical zones in the northern part of the country from 3rd June to 30th of the same month.