UBE policy falls short with enrolment down one million pupils

Children’s Day is recognised on various days in many places around the world to honour children.

As Nigeria observes its children’s day today, attention reverts to the Universal Basic Education (UBE) program where recent Bureau of Statistics (NBS) 2016 education data showed total enrolment dropped by one million pupils to 23.1 million in 2014 from 24.2 million in 2013.

Analysts attribute this drop in enrolment to a number of factors, including a lack of coordination between the Federal Government and States, misappropriation of UBE funds and a lack of confidence in the program by some parents who now prefer private schools to public schools because of falling standards.

Others include the worsening economic realities parents face making it necessary for them to have children hawk various items on the streets and the insurgency in the northeast.

“We are not putting the pupils at the centre of the UBE policy implementation. The funds rarely get to their destination due to financial leakages. This is partly because most of it ends up being used to enlarge and beautify the permanent secretary’s office. However, when you visit some UBE schools, they have no tables and study under trees,” said Folasade Adefisayo, principal consultant/CEO at Lead Learning, an education management consultancy.

The UBE, a nine-year basic educational programme comes under the spotlight because the United Nation Children’s Education Fund (UNICEF) statistics had in 2015 put Nigeria’s out of school children at 10.5 million, 60 per cent of whom were girls.

There are three components to the UBE scheme, namely: formal basic education encompassing the first nine years of schooling (primary and junior secondary education) for all children; nomadic education for school age children, pastoral nomads and migrant fishermen; and literacy and non-formal education for out-of-school-children, youth and adults.

Designed to eradicate illiteracy, ignorance and poverty as well as stimulate and accelerate national development, political consciousness and national integration, the UBE, Nigeria’s strategy to achieve Education for All (EFA), was flagged off in 1999.

The Federal Government backed this commitment with action by committing 2 percent of its Consolidated Revenue as counterpart funding to all 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for its implementation.

Funding the UBE policy has however been soiled with allegations of misappropriation and inefficient allocation of resources. Between 1999, when the country returned to democracy and 2009, the central government spent over N1.13 trillion on the education sector alone.

Education experts say the outcome of this huge government expenditure has been negligible.

They say the phenomenon of corruption is compounding the problem of shortage of funds in the implementation of the UBE programme. Even where the allocated fund is not enough, some Nigerian officials working in the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) offices across the country usually misuse the little that is made available.

BusinessDay’s visit to some UBE schools revealed mixed outcomes. Whilst some UBE schools have received appreciable upgrade in infrastructure: new classrooms, new study desks and chairs amongst others, are in dire need of government intervention.

At some of these public schools, the pupils looked unkempt. In none of the schools visited were there Information Communication Technology (ICT) facilities.                              

ICT is transforming everything ranging from banking, farming, to medicine, yet most of these children who attend UBE schools may never learn to use a computer during the nine years of basic education.

“The UBE should produce citizens of tomorrow. The present generation of children are digital natives because they were born at a time when ICT is everywhere. The new form of illiteracy is ICT-illiteracy and the UBE is promoting this new form of illiteracy,” said Muyiwa Bamgbose, chief strategic officer at Educational Advancement Centre, Ibadan.

To assess the efficiency and performance of the UBE school system, the Monitoring Learning Achievement (MLA) project, an international consultative forum in collaboration with the Federal Government measured pupils’ performance in three domains of knowledge: literacy (English language), numeracy (mathematics) and life skills (social studies, health education, basic science, home economics, etc.) across some states of the federation.

The mean percent scores on the literacy, numeracy and life skills tests were 25.1 per cent, 32.2 percent and 32.6 percent respectively.

Although, performance was generally poor, pupils were less competent in English language skills and displayed relative more understanding of tasks in mathematics and life skills.

In general, pupils were found to have poor writing skills.

“The most blatant failure is the infrastructural weaknesses that abound in the lack of quality and quantum of human and material resources made available by state and federal governments. The quality of inputs would naturally determine the quality of output that is graduated into tertiary education and industry,” explained James Kayode Makinde, emeritus president/vice chancellor, Babcock University.

Another major challenge to the successful implementation of the UBE Scheme is lack of proper planning on the part of the government.

One of the factors responsible for the improper planning is faulty census exercise. Almost all the census exercises carried out so far in Nigeria, either before independence or after, have been marred with massive irregularities.

The national population census exercise has always raised political hysteria leading to hyperinflation of census figures, which makes it impossible to know the exact figures for school age population.

Cecilia Oladapo, professor of adult education and head, adult education at the University of Lagos says the loss of prestige that used to be associated with the teaching profession is another big factor bedevilling the UBE policy.

“In the past, teachers were revered as role models and most people who became teachers did so out of a sense of vocation. Today, for one reason or another, those who end up in public schools might be qualified but the output could be poor because they are not rightly motivated,” Oladapo said.

STEPHEN ONYEKWELU