From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), has announced that plans are underway to commence the conduct of 2022 personnel audit of all basic education schools in Nigeria.
The Commission said the exercise was aimed at gathering data that would be useful in policy formulation for basic education sub-sector in Nigeria.
Executive Secretary of UBEC, Dr. Hamid Bobboyi, announced the decision during a high level consultative meeting on the 2022 National Personnel Audit (NPA) of all basic education schools in Nigeria.
He lamented that dearth of data on basic education has remained a major challenge, saying that education planners and decision makers have had to make do with data that are not up-to-date or are outrightly falsified.
He said the exercise would enable the Commission collect accurate data on school enrolment, number of teachers and other personnel in the system, as well as facilities, among others.
He noted that the last time the personnel audit was conducted was in 2018, adding that the desire of the Commission was to put in place a structure that would update the 2018 database on continuous basis and build a culture of data generation and management down to the school level.
According to him, the exercise would be carried in collaboration with the State Governments and the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) in all schools offering full or elements of basic education.
He said that being the fourth after 2006, 2010, 2018, the exercise will create a situation whereby proper planning is put in place to end over estimate of needs leading to waste of resources, or under-estimation which leads to under-resourcing.
He warned that Nigeria’s school data for any particular period should be a national data that is available for use in and outside the country, adding that from the schools to the federal level, and at all times, the number of characters of learners, teachers and other personnel in schools must be in sync.
He said: “Our desire after the exercise was to put in place a structure that would be updating the 2018 database in continuous basis and through this, build a culture of data generation and management down to the school level. This could not be achieved due to the absence of facilities and personnel at the difference levels.”
He said the successful conduct of the exercise will give Nigeria a credible basic school data that can be quoted and used with confidence all over the world.