Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has expressed concerns that states are not coming forth with their counterpart funds to access the annual matching grant to develop their basic education system.

The commission said it was particularly concerned that about N110 billion of the intervention funds accessed from UBEC were not utilised by states as of 2021 with the money left in the coffers of State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs).

It has, however, earmarked N2 billion for the proposed national personnel audit of all basic education institutions in the country.

Executive Secretary of UBEC, Hamid Bobboyi, disclosed the personnel audit exercise has commenced in the southern part of the country on June 6, 2022, to end June 25, 2022, while it will take off in all the northern states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on July 4, 2022 and come to a close 23rd July, 2022.

Bobboyi told newsmen at a press conference in Abuja, yesterday, that during the exercise, enumerators would visit all basic education institutions in the country, notably, public, private, approved, unapproved, registered and unregistered.

“They are expected to collect basic information on schools and personnel. It’s necessary to emphasise that the exercise has no ulterior motive other than to collate data that will assist the country to plan effectively towards expanding access to quality education and promoting gender parity at basic and other levels of education.”

He confirmed that lots of ground have been covered since the introduction of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme, but lack of relevant and updated data remains a major problem in the basic education sector.

“School data is supposed to flow up from the school level but our schools lack the facility and the personnel to generate and transmit such data. UBEC attempted to address the challenge by conducting personnel audit in schools.”

Sun