The Universal Basic Education Commission has said that it has concluded all necessary arrangements to embark on a thorough personnel audit, eight years after a similar exercise was carried out by the Federal Government.
The Executive Secretary, UBEC, Dr. Hamid Bobboyi, disclosed this in Abuja on Thursday, saying that the decision was informed by lack of accurate information to support basic educational development in the country.
Bobboyi added that the exercise had been approved by the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu.
He said the exercise had become necessary in order to tackle clear challenges confronting basic education delivery in Nigeria.
According to him, the comprehensive personnel audit of basic schools in Nigeria, which equally had the support of other stakeholders in the education sector, was expected to revive the basic education system said to be in a rot.
Bobboyi disclosed that the exercise would be undertaken in batches, cutting across the six geopolitical zones and the 36 states of the Federation.
When concluded, the exercise is expected to obtain comprehensive data of children of school going age, who are enrolled in basic education schools, both primary and junior secondary.
It will also uncover the number and qualification of teaching and non-teaching staff in basic education institutions in Nigeria, including their personal information and progression in service. It will also take into account authentic mapping of all basic education schools in the country, including existing administrative and management personnel.
The audit, he further explained, would obtain required indices necessary for the determination of some key performance indicators in the basic education sub-sector.
According to him, there is no point pretending that all is well within the education sector, when the system lacks strategic approach to address emerging challenges.
Bobboyi said, “This audit can be likened to school census, where we will take into account the pupils, number of teachers within the system and their level of qualifications, among other things. It will provide reliable data for assessing the impact and achievement of the sub-sector in realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals.
“It will also feed the acquired data into the national data bank for global reporting in line with Nigeria’s Educational Management Information System (NEMIS) policy. The first phase will be conducted in all states of the three geo-political zones in the southern part of the country from April 29 to May 27, 2018. The second phase will kick off from June 3 to 30, 2018, in the three geopolitical zones in the northern part of the
country.”
The Act establishing UBEC empowers it to carry out a personnel audit of teaching and non-teaching staff of all basic educational institutions in Nigeria. But this must be done in collaboration with states and local governments at regular intervals.
