The Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr Hamid Bobboyi, has disclosed that the results of the 2022 National Personnel Audit (NPA) for basic education institutions in the country is almost ready for release.
Bobboyi stated this while fielding questions from journalists during a one-day colloquium, organised by the Commission in honour of late Professor Gidado Tahir, the former executive secretary of UBEC, on Monday in Abuja.
The colloquium has its theme, “The Nigerian Child: Dynamics of Educational Opportunities.”
The Executive secretary said the Commission chose the topic following the role Prof Gidado played as one of the key promoters of basic education in Nigeria.
“The whole idea is trying to see how we can address those issues within the context of the legacies that has been left behind by Gidado
“UBEC has always involved in this kind of project because we have always believe that you need to engage, discuss and strategize and get involved in research project that can help you understand better those challenges and how best to address to them
“So it is a continuous process. We have always been engaging in this kind of colloquium, we have outstanding research team and as you know, we also processing the results for the 2022 National Personnel Audit for school census as well as assessment of learning in education, which is one of the largest in Africa that will give us an idea of whether our children are learning or not and areas which we are having difficulties
“So we are engaging this. We have to do it for the interest of the basic education sector and its development in Nigeria.
“The results of the National Personnel Audit is almost ready. Our hope is to launch both the National Assessment of Learning as well as the personnel audit in July or there about,” he added.
Need For Population Census
The UBEC boss however, stressed the need for the National Population Commission to conduct census saying this will help UBEC in carrying out their functions.
According to the UBEC Exec. Secretary, “The only disappointment is on one issue that I needed to raise. You cannot get the number of out of school children from there for the simple fact that you need the population figures of the various age groups from National Population Commission and the National population Commission has not provide this.
“The estimate they have been making are no longer relevant so that is the reason while are very desperate for a national census that can can give us an idea of our accurate population,” Bobboyi said.
Basic Education Challenges
In a related development, the Executive Secretary of UBEC, Dr Hamid Bobboyi called for the need to strategise and find ways to understand the educational challenges in basic education and how best to address them.
Speaking on the number of out-of-school children in the country, he said that the National Population Commission (NPC) through the conduct of census could give the accurate figure of the Out-of-School children.
”There is need for us to strategies and get involved in projects, we need to engage, discuss and strategies in the project that can help understand these challenges and how best to address them,“ he added.
PIAK
