Favour Ishember, Abuja

The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) is to launch an open schooling programme to provide flexible learning opportunities and increase access to basic education in Nigeria.
Dr. Hamid Bobboyi, UBEC’s Executive Secretary, announced the initiative during a meeting with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Abuja.
The programme aims to support those who cannot access traditional basic education settings.
Represented by the Deputy Executive Secretary (Service), Prof. Isiaka Kolawole, Bobboyi emphasised that the initiative aims to offer extensive access to basic education for Nigerians.
According to him, despite efforts and investments by various stakeholders, the education sector still faces significant challenges, including out-of-school children, inadequate infrastructure, outdated laws, teacher shortages, and insecurity.
“Though much has been invested, and great efforts made by government, corporate and private institutions, and privileged individuals, and despite the various interventions by UBEC, much more still needs to be done towards improving basic education in the country.
“UBEC is finalizing arrangements for the Open Schooling Programme in the basic education sub-sector as an accelerated education intervention.
“This programme is intended to provide a flexible learning approach and support those who cannot access traditional UBE settings,” he said.
“Key issues include the large number of out-of-school children, insufficient teaching and learning infrastructure, outdated UBE enabling Act, gaps in teacher quality and availability, low partnerships for UBE delivery, insecurity, and lack of awareness about the importance of education in rural and underserved communities,” he added.
UBEC’s Deputy Executive Secretary (Technical), Prof. Bala Zakari, highlighted a severe shortage of qualified teachers in public primary schools, with a gap of 194,876 teachers.
The Commission called for support from CSOs to enhance education delivery and urged state governments to allocate more resources to education.
The event aimed to foster interactions and idea-sharing between UBEC and CSOs to improve basic education delivery in Nigeria.
Earlier, in his opening remarks, Dr. Osom Osom, Director of Social Mobilisation at UBEC, stated that the event was organised to foster robust interactions and idea-sharing between the Commission and CSOs, with the goal of enhancing basic education delivery.
“This is part of ongoing discussions between UBEC and partners on basic education delivery, to enable us to interact and share experiences,” he said.