The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) is set to commence implementation of its 10-year Universal Basic Education Roadmap, 2026-2035, in October, with a new approach aimed at ending fragmented interventions in schools.
The commission said the roadmap would shift basic education interventions from isolated projects, such as constructing classrooms or supplying furniture, towards a comprehensive assessment of the needs of individual schools.
Aisha Garba, executive secretary of UBEC, disclosed this on Monday in Abuja at a two-day consultative workshop with chairmen of the 36 State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs) and UBEC directors.
Garba also unveiled the Basic Education Action Plan Management System (BEAPMS), a digital platform designed to strengthen planning, transparency and monitoring of basic education projects nationwide.
She said the new approach would require states to identify the full range of gaps in a school before action plans are approved by UBEC.
‘For any state to do renovation, you have to do a whole school approach. A whole school approach means, you take a school and you look at all the gaps,’ she said.
According to her, the reform is intended to prevent situations where a school receives a few classrooms or furniture without other essential facilities required for a functional learning environment.
‘You don’t just put in a furniture or you drop two blocks of classrooms and you leave because you want to give out awards. No, you have to take in all the comprehensive needs of that particular school,’ she said.
She explained that interventions would consider facilities such as fencing and toilets, while the construction of additional classrooms would be matched with adequate toilet facilities based on projected enrolment.
The UBEC executive secretary also announced a revision of the matching grant formula to give states greater flexibility in deploying UBEC funds according to their specific education needs.
She said the previous formula placed significant emphasis on new infrastructure, even as some states increasingly required funding for the rehabilitation and improvement of existing schools.
‘The new formula allows each state to look at their own needs. If their needs on the ground is furniture, if their needs on the ground is renovating all schools to ensure that our schools now have fencing, have computers, have furniture, then they are allowed to do that,’ Garba said.
She added that the revised framework could accommodate other priorities identified by states, including enrolment materials and additional teachers where increased enrolment creates such needs.
On BEAPMS, Garba said the digital system would enable greater public participation in monitoring projects implemented under the 10-year roadmap.
She said parents and community members would be able to track projects, funding and the quality of interventions delivered in schools through the platform.
‘This will also allow us to bring in the community to be part of the monitoring of the projects that we do on the ground,’ she said.
Garba added that UBEC would publish information on the amount of funding accessed by each state and details of projects being implemented on its website.
‘With that, community can hold us accountable to the money we have accessed from UBEC, and then also the projects we’re doing on the ground, as well as the quality of projects we’re doing,’ she said.
The commission said BEAPMS had been under development for more than a month, with SUBEB chairmen already onboarded ahead of full implementation in October.
Also speaking, Shehu Adaramaja, dean of SUBEB chairmen and chairman of the Kwara State SUBEB, said the consultation would help stakeholders establish a common direction for basic education delivery over the next decade.
He said the meeting would focus on strategies for expanding access, improving service quality and strengthening basic education management systems.
Adaramaja said the consultation was designed as a hands-on exercise, with directors of research and statistics expected to contribute to the development of the framework that would guide states in preparing their basic education action plans.
He noted that UBEC’s intervention mandate had expanded beyond physical infrastructure to include other components necessary to strengthen basic education delivery.
Earlier, Nura Ibrahim, director of physical planning at UBEC, said the workshop would enable stakeholders to review and validate the proposed roadmap while drawing on their technical expertise and experience in implementing basic education programmes across the states.