By Rosemary Ogbonnaya
Universal Basic Education Commission UBEC, says the sum of N2b has been earmarked for the conduct of the 2022 National Personnel Audit , NPA.
The Executive Secretary of the Commission, Dr. Hamid Bobboyi made this known in Abuja on Tuesday during the briefing on the 2022 National Personnel Audit.
Dr Bobboyi disclosed that the 2022 NPA which will be in two phases has already commenced in 17 States of the country, specifically in South-East and South-south.
He further disclosed that the Northern phase covering 19states and the Federal Capital Territory will begin on the 4th of July and ends on Saturday, 23rd July, 2022.
Bobboyi acknowledged that absence of credible data had remained a major challenge in basic education implementation for a long time.
The UBEC Exec. Secretary emphasised that for NPA data to be continually useful as a planning tool, it must be regularly updated.
“The 2022 personnel audit should therefore be seen in the light of updating the basic education database created in 2022”
According to Dr.Bobboyi, during the exercise , enumerators will visit all basic education institutions in the country, the public , private, approved , unapproved , registered and unregistered will all be visited”
“They are going to collect basic information on schools and personnel”
He added that the NPA exercise has no ulterior motive stressing that data being collected will assist the country to plan effectively towards expansion of access to quality education and promoting gender parity at basic and other levels of education.
“On the 2022 NPA the commission is in partnership with relevant government government agencies, development partners and NGOs , National Bureau of Statistics, National Population Commission , Nigeria Air Space Research and Development Agency, NUT, Association of private school owners , the World Bank, Unicef, Grid3 among others.
Earlier, the Chairman of the 2022 NPA, Prof. Bala Zakari, said the Commission had generated list of basic schools in each Local Government Areas from State Universal Basic Education to address issues of hard to reach areas and places facing security challenges.
” we must acknowledge that there is no area where human activity can be 100percent perfect” Prof. Zakari said.
He said that denial of 2022 NPA teams access to schools will further contribute to the increasing number of Out of School.
“The NPA exercise is out to ensure that all existing learning centers will be counted along with available facilities in the schools we believe it will help partners in their intervention plans and will serve as database for the basic education institutions in Nigeria”
UBEC first attempt at addressing data challenge in basic education sub sector in 2006 and 2010 , the scope was limited to only public schools. A more comprehensive exercise was conducted in 2018 , it was extended to cover public and private institutions.
