The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) will commence implementation of its 10-year Universal Basic Education Roadmap, 2026–2035, in the first week of October, the commission has said.
UBEC Executive Secretary, Dr Aisha Garba, disclosed this in Abuja on Monday at a two-day consultative workshop with chairmen of the 36 State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs) and directors of the commission.
Garba said the roadmap would replace the practice of implementing isolated infrastructure projects without addressing the broader needs of individual schools.
She said UBEC was adopting a “whole school approach” under which the comprehensive needs of each school would be assessed and addressed before interventions were approved.
“For any state to do renovation, you have to do a whole school approach. A whole school approach means, you take a school and you look at all the gaps,” she said.
According to her, the new approach would prevent situations where classrooms or furniture were provided without other essential facilities required to create a functional learning environment.
“You don’t just put in a furniture or you drop two blocks of classrooms and you leave because you want to give out awards. No, you have to take in all the comprehensive needs of that particular school,” she added.
The UBEC boss also unveiled the Basic Education Action Plan Management System (BEAPMS), a digital platform designed to improve planning, transparency and monitoring of basic education projects nationwide.
She said the platform would allow communities to participate in monitoring projects and track funding and the quality of interventions implemented in their schools.
Garba said information on the funds accessed by each state, as well as details of projects being implemented, would be published on the commission’s website.
“With that, community can hold us accountable to the money we have accessed from UBEC, and then also the projects we’re doing on the ground, as well as the quality of projects we’re doing,” she said.
She said the digital platform had been under development for more than a month, adding that SUBEB chairmen had been onboarded ahead of its full implementation in October.
Garba also announced a revision of UBEC’s matching grant formula to enable states deploy intervention funds according to their specific education needs.
She explained that the previous formula placed significant emphasis on new infrastructure, even in states where the priority was maintenance, renovation and improvement of existing schools.
“The new formula allows each state to look at their own needs. If their needs on the ground is furniture, if their needs on the ground is renovating all schools to ensure that our schools now have fencing, have computers, have furniture, then they are allowed to do that,” she said.
She added that the revised framework could also accommodate enrolment materials and additional teachers where states identified rising enrolment as a priority.
The UBEC ES said the whole-school approach would also ensure that facilities were provided according to the needs of the school and projected enrolment.
She cited the provision of toilets and fencing as examples of facilities that would be incorporated into intervention plans where they were lacking.
Also speaking, the Dean of SUBEB Chairmen and Chairman of the Kwara State SUBEB, Prof. Shehu Adaramaja, said the consultation would help stakeholders establish a common direction for basic education delivery over the next decade.
He said the meeting would focus on strategies to expand access, improve quality and strengthen basic education management systems.
“In the next two days, we’ll pay attention to all the strategies and the initiatives toward the development of a roadmap for the next 10 years on how to provide access, provide quality service, and of course, strengthen our systems in line with our new basic education management system,” Adaramaja said.
He said the workshop was designed as a hands-on exercise, with directors of research and statistics expected to participate in developing the framework that would guide the preparation of state basic education action plans.
Adaramaja also noted that UBEC’s intervention mandate had expanded beyond physical infrastructure to include other components aimed at strengthening basic education delivery.
Earlier, UBEC Director of Physical Planning, Arc. Nura Ibrahim, said the workshop would provide an opportunity for stakeholders to review and validate the proposed roadmap while drawing on their technical expertise and experience in implementing basic education programmes across the states.
