Until recently, activities of the Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) in Borno State were at a standstill because the previous government did not access counterpart funding from the federal government and other donor agencies.
The effect of the rather lacklustre posture of the immediate past government was obvious as it manifested in the poor enrolment of children in schools and the attendant social and economic uncertainties of those who should be in school.
The 2010 Nigeria Education Data Survey (NEDS) which was released by the National Population Commission (NPC) few months ago, showed that Borno was at the bottom of the ladder of educational prosperity.
“Most of the educational indices in Borno are abysmally poor figures, such that it is embarrassing for me to quote some of them,” Governor Kashim Shettima, told the Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr Ahmed Modibbo Mohammed, during a recent courtesy call on him at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja.
The governor said a new era has begun between Borno State and the Commission: “I want to tender our unreserved apology on behalf of the government and people of Borno State for the inability of the government to access the intervention funds of the UBE for the past couple of years. I want to assure the leadership of the Commission that there is a change in the baton of leadership in the state and we are poised to really approach headlong, the myriad of problems confronting us as a people.”
The NEDS result showed that Borno State had the highest non-school attendance of 72 percent. Again, according to the findings, Borno State had the highest number of children who cannot read. It ranked second from the bottom with only 14.2 percent of children between the ages of 15 and 16 years being able to read.
It was indeed an ugly scenario because basic infrastructure in most of the primary and secondary schools were in a pitiful state even as there is high apathy on the part of teachers because of complete absence of incentives and other interventions that will boost their morale to teach with commitment.
“Things are gradually changing now,” said Professor Tijjani Abba Ali, who is the commissioner and executive chairman of the Borno State Universal Basic Education Board (BOSUBEB).
Until his recent appointment, he was the acting dean and head of the Department of Mathematics at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria. His arrival at Borno SUBEB was seen as a new lease of life for the board.
He explained how he found his new posting, “SUBEB is in charge of nursery, primary and junior secondary schools in Borno. In the past, it could not perform up to expectations because the state government was unable to access its counterpart funding. But when the administration of Alhaji Kashim Shettima came in, the counterpart fund for 2008, 2009 and 2010 were accessed. With these funds available, we are now trying to see how we can improve the nursery, primary and the junior secondary school sub-sectors. In all of them, we are going to renovate the schools, recruit teachers and make the atmosphere conducive for learning.”
He explained why the state is educationally backward and assured of plans to remedy it: “In a nutshell, lack of political will was responsible for the inability of the state government to access the counterpart fund. This government is interested in taking the education sector to a greater height. We have a work plan which will ensure that the funds that we access are judiciously used. We have presented the work plan to UBEC in Abuja and we have mentioned the schools we will construct classrooms, toilets, boreholes and so on. We are now awarding contracts in respect of the projects.”
Sunday Trust notes that education delivery in Borno State is plagued with a myriad of problems. In some places, teacher-student ratio stands at 1-100 or worse.
In some Tsangaya schools, one finds over 5000 pupils under the tutelage of a single teacher.
“We believe there is apathy in Borno,” Professor Tijjani said. He added, “we have a school-based management committee comprising the village heads, school headmasters, PTA members and the like. This administration had paid its counterpart in respect of the Tsangaya integrated school system. Right now, we are doing six projects and we have provided land for the construction of two new Tsangaya schools. We also have four existing ones which would be equipped and some teachers recruited. We are really on course.”
He said about N4 billion had been accessed by the state government which would be used for the projects. “We are now at the stage of awarding contracts to various contractors. We will put checks and balances. We will have our monitoring team and the federal government will also have its monitoring team to monitor the projects,” he said.
But observers say getting access to counterpart fund is one thing and using it judiciously is another. Such observers believe that SUBEBs are like a conduit used by state chief executives to siphon money. It is believed that they siphon money, among other ways, by appointing their family members or close associates to head the board.
“I cannot speak on the past and though I am new on the seat as chairman of Borno SUBEB, I know that the work plan is there. I told the governor that since the work plan has been approved, we must follow it religiously and he agreed. So, the question of favouring anybody doesn’t arise,” Professor Tijjani said.
Although Governor Shettima has given the new SUBEB chairman executive powers, including the status of a commissioner in order to ensure the resuscitation of the board, some people who share different political opinion with the governor said he will need an “iron hand’ to address the myriad of problems bedevilling the education sector in the state.
“Ruling political parties in Nigeria always give shallow attention to education because they don’t want the poor to be educated. They want the illiterate to remain ignorant about their rights. That is why our schools are in a pitiable condition,” Mohammed Salisu, a chieftain of the opposition Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), in the state, said.
YOBE, UP-TO-DATE IN ACCESSING UBE FUND, SHORT ON SERVICE DELIVERY
Sunday Trust’s visit to primary schools within Yobe State capital, Damaturu, showed inadequacy of classroom furniture as well as texts and exercise books for the pupils.
Pupils were sitting on sandy floors in many cases and in some of the classes even teachers had no desk to place things or write on. Virtually all classes in some schools were without doors and windows. It would be expected that the surroundings of such schools would be dirty. They were.
Teachers complained of lack of instructional materials and workbooks, and the pupils confirmed failure by the government to provide them with necessary materials like notebooks, saying the lack of such things is affecting their learning.
Parents also complained of poor performance even when it was made clear to them that the Yobe State Universal Basic Education Board (YSUBEB), won the 3rd place of the North East UBE good performance award. Some of the parents doubted the criteria followed by the UBE to arrive at that decision considering their children’s performance.
Mohammad Zanna who is a parent, told Sunday Trust that his son is in primary four but cannot write anything other than his own name: “It’s really some news to me that Yobe state placed third in UBE good performance evaluation in the North East zone, because my son is in primary four but cannot write any meaningful word other than his own name.”
Yobe State Commissioner of Education, Alhaji Mala Musty, gave indications to what must have contributed to the state’s high UBE rating. He told Sunday Trust, “Yobe State has been very consistent in paying its UBE counterpart funds contrary to what is happening in other states. Now, our governor has paid the counterpart fund for 2010. You know, some states are far behind, as far behind as 2007. At present, His Excellency is waiting for SUBEB’s action plan. It’s one of the reasons why the former SUBEB chairman had to go. His Excellency had for months been asking him to bring his action plan. He was replaced and posted to another place last week.”
Yobe State has 1017 public primary schools that enrol 567,284 pupils annually with 12,614 teaching and non teaching staff. Sunday Trust gathered from sources in both primary and secondary schools that the schools suffer shortage of qualified teachers in especially four core subjects which include English and Mathematics. There are also complaints of insufficient number of classrooms, the available few of which, at that, are poorly maintained. Teachers grumble about non-implementation of promotion policy while those who provide service through Federal Teachers Scheme (FTS) criticize the state’s Teachers Service Board for not absorbing them after completing their one year mandatory service.
‘BASIC EDUCATION SUFFERS NEGLECT IN KEBBI DESPIT UBE’
President Olusegun Obasanjo was quick to establishthe UBE upon coming into power in 1999. And he flagged it off in the North, perceptively as his own way of challenging the North to work harder at educating its children. To Sokoto, west of the North, Obasanjo went on 30th September, 1999 to launch the UBE, a programme made broader than the Universal Free Primary Education (UPE), an elementary education development scheme which the same Obasanjo started in September, 1976 during his reign as a military head of state.
The UBE is intended to be universal, free, and compulsory; the goal being to provide functional and quality education for all Nigerians of school age. But as in most such educational schemes dating back to when Nigeria itself came to be, the North is noted to be slow in responding. Kebbi State is seen by many as not having managed to make an inspiring difference.
“Schools owned and run by government still suffer neglect,” the Director of Publicity of the opposition Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Alhaji Abubakar B. Kalgo, asserted. He added, “structures in many of the schools are dilapidated. The morale of teachers is low as they do not have incentives such as even general training and quality salary package.”
Officials of the state government insist, however, that the state has not been a laggard, at least where UBE implementation is concerned.
Chairman of the Kebbi State Universal Basic Education Board, Alhaji Haruna Dankatsina Aliero, said the Board has been discharging its responsibilities without hitches and got good performance award for three successive years.
“The fund we received as part of the National Award for Good Performance was used to develop education. For instance, the first award was used for the renovation of Government Girls Secondary Schools in Zagga. The second N50 million award was used to build some blocks of classrooms in Bulasa and the third award of N200 million was used in the construction of Government Science Secondary Schools in Dakingari, Zuru and Argungu,” he said.
According to Dankatsina, “as for our counterpart fund remittance, we are one of the states that are doing well and that is one of the secrets behind our successful performance and the reason why the state has been receiving national awards in the execution of Universal Basic Education Projects for three consecutive years.”
The Kebbi State Commissioner of Education, Alhaji Abdullahi Kamba-Kamba said the state does not hesitate to pay its counterpart fund to access funds in lie sum from UBEC for the implementation of UBE projects.
He spoke of future plans: “More schools will be constructed to decongest the student population and more teachers will be employed to man the schools.”
OPPOSITION ALLEGES CONTRACT SCAM IN NIGER STATE
In Niger State where the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) forms the government, the strongest opposition party, the CPC, feels money that should fund UBE is being channelled into the pockets of multiple contractors. According to the CPC chairman in the state, Malam Umar Shu’aibu, there is no way schools will have qualitative structures in Niger State because competent contractors are rejected for political allies. Contracts for the construction of classrooms are not only awarded to politicians but also executed at inflated costs, Malam Shuaibu alleged.
He added, “for the most painful part of it, the board will award these contracts to the politicians who in turn would sell them out to contractors. Since the contract goes through many hands, the final contractor will do the job with the most inferior materials available in order to make his own gain.”
A staff of one of the primary schools who spoke in confidence said that indeed, many new structures are being built in such a way that at least, a renovation soon becomes necessary and that such practice is often encouraged as a means for new contracts which will of course, always mean new opportunities to pocket illicit gains.
The chairman of the Niger State Universal Basic Education Board, Alhaji Uba Hassan says Niger State government has been regular in paying its counterpart fund and accessing the UBE fund for the running of SUBEB. He told Sunday Trust on phone that his Board in 2010, made an over payment of N 200 million to cover the first quarter of 2011.
According to him, the state government now has an outstanding amount of N600 million to cover up the remaining counterpart fund of the remaining three quarters of this year.
He added that for ensuring uniformity and high quality of instructional materials and training, the coordinating body of the scheme, the Universal Basic Education Commission, is mandated to deduct 30 percent from source for the purchase and supply of instructional materials as well as for training of teachers.
Hassan maintained that the State Universal Basic Education Boards is only mandated to enjoy 70 percent of the total sum appropriated to each state for the development of infrastructure in primary schools.
The chairman, while enumerating some of the achievements of the board under his administration, said it was able to construct 1,713 classrooms across the state.
He added that the board has as a future plan, to engage a ‘whole school’ approach in 176 schools in the state, adding that the approach involves a complete rejuvenation of the existing structures as well as constructing new ones.
He disclosed that there is a plan to construct high-rise classroom blocks, each to contain as many as 10 classes in some primary schools in the state.
KATSINA UBE: POOR INFRASTRUCTURE, HAPPY TEACHERS
In Katsina State, many primary schools that Sunday Trust visited had no chairs and tables although books and some other basic instructional materials were generally in evidence. At Isa Kaita Qur’anic Model School, Jibiru Abdullahi (former Garama) and Layout Primary schools, classes lacked furniture. Although Jibiru Model was rehabilitated last year, most classes were empty as classroom fixtures had broken down and were dumped around the school premises.
Apart from lack of furniture at Isa Kaita Model, there was also congestion in primary 1, 2, 3 and 6. The classes contained 200, 170, 150 and 176 pupils respectively. The pupils were sitting on the bare floors of their respective classrooms due to lack of furniture.
The furniture evidently caved in due to poor quality and much use. Apart from the school pupils, students of tertiary institutions and Islamiyyah schools receive lessons in the schools.
At Jiabiru Abdullahi, one teacher said Islamiyyah school students who are mostly married women are being taught in the schools in the evenings while banks train their new workers also in the schools.
Teachers however appear to have little to complain about. A teacher at Isa Kaita confirmed that teachers in the state receive their salaries as at whendue while teaching materials have always been supplied to primary schools since the inception of the present administration.
Alhaji Abu Qassim Jibia, the secretary of the Katsina SUBEB, told Sunday Trust that the Board is aware of inadequacy of furniture in some schools, but that the Board has already forwarded its request for money to furnish the affected schools.
“If not because of the elections and the just-ended strike by the NLC, we would have got our request, but I am sure the governor will approve it very soon and the schools will be how they should be,” Qassim said.
He said the government spent N120 million last year on the purchase of furniture and instructional materials for primary schools, adding that intervention funds which the Education Trust Fund (ETF) gave last year was meant for erection of structures.
He spoke further: “Ideally, provision of structures is for the state government while renovation of schools, furnishing and teachers’ salaries are responsibilities of the local governments. But sometimes, it is the state government that shoulders all the responsibilities. We have sent our request for furnishing of some primary schools, including the Isa Kaita Model, Jibiru Abdullahi and Layout Primary Schools, among others. Government is doing its best and the Board has been winning awards of excellence in primary education services.”
The state Commissioner of Education, Professor Aminu K. Kurfi, told Sunday Trust that although he became the commissioner about two months ago, he is aware that the Ibrahim Shema-led government has spent a lot of money on education.
Professor Kurfi explained that last year, the government spent N1.08bn for the construction of 44 classroom blocks, rehabilitation of storm-damaged schools and expansion of the State Mathematics Improvement Project (MIP) offices and purchase of customised text books, among other things.
GOMBE SUBEB AS A CASH COW
The immediate past governor of Gombe State, Senator Danjuma Goje, may be the first to be prosecuted for using the state universal basic education fund for purposes different from developing universal basic education in the state while he was governor between 2003 and last May.
Gombe is one of the three states which have accessed the UBE counterpart fund from the Universal Basic Education Commission in Abuja up to this quarter, July to September 2011, but Sunday Trust’s investigation revealed that what exists across the state by way of infrastructural development indices for the UBE programme do not justify the sums that have supposedly been expended on the programme since 2005 when the UBE took off effectively.
This is said to have engaged the interest of the EFCC to beam its searchlight on the board which led to the quizzing of the former executive chairman of the state SUBEB, Alhaji Aliyu Ubandoma El-Nafaty.
Physical evidences are a question mark on quality of even structures that the state SUBEB put up. Our correspondent who visited some primary school projects executed at Dukku, Akko and Gombe metropolis reports that although some storey-buildings were erected with the UBEC/SUBEB funds, most of them lack chairs and tables to cater for the pupils studying in the schools.
Meanwhile some opposition parties in the state have called on the EFCC to ensure a thorough investigation of the board and other agencies used by the former governor of the state ‘to siphon public funds.’
State chairman of the all Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), Alhaji Umar Liman Shatima, said the arrest of the former governor by the EFCC is a vindication of what his party had continued to say; that the former governor squandered their state resources through bogey contracts using some agencies of government.
The incumbent state governor, Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo, is yet to appoint a substantive executive chairman for the board after the board was dissolved by Goje, but a senior official of the board who doesn’t want his name in print attributed the dearth of furniture in most of the schools to the ‘high demand from the schools’ which the board is yet to meet.
A youth organisation, the Gombe Youth Forum, rallied support for Goje who the group said deserves to be treated fairly as ‘he has brought lots of infrastructural development to the state.’
POOR infrastructural DEVELOPMENT, PARTICULARLY IN RURAL BAUCHI
In Bauchi, Sunday Trust gathered that although the state accesses its UBE funds, it is a state beset by many challenges in rural and urban areas in varying proportions. Some primary school teachers said congestion in classrooms is a common problem, with some 120 pupils studying in a class under a single teacher in many places. Invariably, some of the classrooms lack desks and chairs. For a largely poor state, some parents do little to improve the situation as many pupils are without writing materials, with some using one exercise book for as many as five subjects.
During visits to primary schools in Tafawa Balewa, Dass, Toro, and Bauchi local government areas, Sunday Trust found that the situation is worse in rural communities. In schools in many of such communities, there are few classroom blocks and pupils commonly take their lessons under trees.
Sunday Trust observes that the State Universal Basic Education Board is headed by a brother to Governor Isa Yuguda, Alhaji Abdullahi Dabo. The SUBEB chairman once asserted, however, that his Board had constructed over 2000 classroom blocks, sank 350 boreholes, built 70 blocks of libraries, and constructed many VIP toilets, apart from the provision of learning and instructional materials. He also emphasized that the state government bought textbooks worth N2.5 billion from Longman Nigeria PLC and distributed them free of charge to the pupils.
An immediate past chairman of the Bauchi State House of Assembly Committee on Education, Alhaji Aminu Tukur, who is from the opposition All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), said although some good projects were being executed, many of them were substandard and concentrated in urban locations. “There is need for government to ensure adequate supervision of the projects and they need to take projects deep down to remote villages.” Tukur said.
Efforts to get an immediate response from the Bauchi SUBEB chief, Abdullahi Labo, failed, but Sunday Trust recollects an interview with him months back when he said, “The issue of pupils learning under trees is sensationalized because it is no longer so bad. Only a handful of them actually need to do so now. It is only fair to remember that when we came in 2007, we inherited over 8000 pupils who had barely any roofs over them. From what we get from UBE and other sources we construct classrooms every year in addition to carrying other development projects.”
BLOWN-OFF ROOFS & BADLY ERODED FLOORS ILLUSTRATE KADUNA UBE
It was a tearful sight to behold in many of the Local Education Authority (LEA) primary schools in Kaduna State. In them, you behold classroom floors that have developed such craters as to make them look like they had been dug out deliberately. Some roofs have either fallen off completely or would be off pretty soon.
A member of the Kaduna State House of Assembly of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Hon. Muhammad Ali, said most of the schools have been turned into centres of narcotic trade by prodigals in the state, adding that government has not done enough with regards to education in the state.
He said, “today in Kaduna State, our primary schools share the filth and squalor of their immediate environment. How can these schools have any good effect on the intellect and moral values of the students? The claim by the PDP-controlled state government to reform education can be best described as fraudulent. What is the PDP government doing to raise quality of our 4, 454 unqualified primary school teachers in the state?”
When Sunday Trust sought the reaction of the state Commissioner of Education through a text message after a direct call failed to connect, the commissioner, Hon. Muhammad Usman, replied, “Please text me on Monday (tomorrow) to give you an appointment;” and calls put to the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Media and Publicity, Reuben Buhari, encountered a ‘phone switched off’ response from his end; but an anonymous official of the government put much of the criticisms on how UBE runs in the state to ‘the antics of rival politicians who won’t notice any good in the governance of the state.’
The official said the state had been regular in accessing UBE funds and deploying them to keep the schools in the ‘appreciable’ conditions that they are in. “When people nag about areas where they sincerely consider to need urgent improvement, they should be fair enough to credit government with evidence of improvement that abound across the state,” the official said.
An update on the level of UBE Matching Grant accessed by states shows that Kaduna has accessed its matching grant from the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) up to the last quarter of last year. The document which Sunday Trust obtained from the Commission in Abuja towards the weekend shows that Kaduna is one of the 17 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to have, as the document puts it, ‘accessed up to 4th Quarter of 2010 Matching Grant.”
A study of the fund accessing update reveals that states have done well generally to obtain the UBE fund from Abuja. Adamawa, Gombe and Kwara are star states in this respect. The three have accessed, according to the update, the 2011 Matching Grant ‘as at 30th September, 2011.’
The states of Benue and Ebonyi appear to have been among the least enthusiastic about the fund. While all 36 states and the FCT have accessed ‘up to 4th quarter’ of 2005, 2006, and 2007; Benue and Ebonyi accessed 1st quarter of 2008 and 2nd quarter of the same year respectively. Both states as well as Anambra and Bayelsa are yet to access any 2009 UBE Matching Grant.
Significantly, the level of accessing the grant is one thing, how the states utilize what they access is an entirely different thing. Public opinion is rife that the UBE grant is a conduit pipe through which many states draw extra cash from the public till into private pockets. To those outside the system who hold such views, a general decay in the UBE educational delivery structures is sufficient proof.
HOW THE UBE GRANT WORKS
The various state boards of the UBE (SUBEBs) are coordinated by the Universal Basic Education Commission which supervises how the fund is accessed and spent.
The UBE is an educational reform programme anchored by the Federal Government that provides free, compulsory, and continuously 9-year education in two levels: 6 years of primary and 3 year of junior secondary education for all school-age children.
The programme was enacted through the UBE Act ,2004 and it took off in May, 2004 when President Olusegun Obasanjo signed the Act into law. The implementation started in July, 2005 with the appropriation of the UBE fund to the commission and subsequent disbursement to states.
UBE is provided within the context of the 6-3-3-4 national policy on education. Indeed, its introduction is a reinforcement of the 6-3-3-4 policy on education. The scheme could not take off immediately after its launch in 1999 as it had no legal backing, but many UBE-related activities were carried out especially in the areas of social mobilization, infrastructural development, and provision of instructional materials.
The federal government, as provided by the UBE Act, 2004 sets aside 2% of its Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) to support states in the implementation of the UBE programme. In the 2005 financial year, this provision amounted to N24.300 billion. In 2006, it was N30.480 billion. It was N35 billion in 2007.
Matching Grant is fund that is contributed by both the federal and state governments on equal basis. To access the federal grant, states have to present their counterpart grant with an action plan for the deployment of the total grant.
The Matching Grant is applied for the construction of classrooms and furniture, procurement of textbooks and instructional materials, teacher professional development, among other areas of intervention. The UBE programme provides that the following be provided free of charge: tuition, textbooks in the 4 and 5 of the core subject areas of primary and JSS, respectively, as well as classroom and other infrastructural facilities. Four of the core subjects in primary school are English Studies, Mathematics, Basic Science, and Technology/Social Studies. Five of the core subjects in junior secondary schools are English Studies, Mathematics, Basic Science, Basic Technology and Social Studies.
UBEC, SUBEBS, AND THE UBE PROGRAMME
The UBEC Principal Public Relations Officer, David Apeh, who took Sunday Trust on the journey of UBE so far, credited ‘accelerated development’ of the scheme to UBEC’s Executive Secretary, Dr Ahmed Modibbo Mohammed.
“The Executive Secretary has introduced innovations since he came in four years ago,” Apeh said, adding, “the Commission under him has been reaching out to more stakeholders than ever before to create necessary awareness for and benefitting from the Commission’s services, including the various states on how important it is that they access their counterpart fund. Many states which were not coming for the UBE fund started coming after the Executive Secretary visited to sensitize them over it. He was entertaining town hall meetings across the states where players in basic education gathered to contribute their suggestions. He holds quarterly meetings with state governors at Aso Villa where he interacts with them on how their respective states are performing.”
He said the sensitization drive has paid off for every stakeholder: “Many states have been coming for their counterpart funds, unlike before when we would have large sums of money lying idle with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Now, UBE’s impact is felt everywhere. We encourage states to access their funds and utilize them properly by giving awards to states that are assessed to have done well. The last award that we did, Rivers State won the top prize. Go to Rivers and you will see the great things that Governor Rotimi Amaechi is doing with UBE money.”
Apeh said Borno State which used to be the worst state in responding to calls by UBEC to access its grant has become one of the best states in that regard: “We had problems with Borno State till the present governor (Alhaji Kashim Shettima) was sworn in (on May 29, 2011). He came personally to express intention to pay his state’s backlog of counterpart funds to access UBEC fund, and he did.”
