The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).

  • FG to establish National Commission for Secondary Education

    FG to establish National Commission for Secondary Education

    The Federal Government Monday revealed that it plans to establish a National Commission for Secondary Education to regulate secondary education in the country.

    Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu disclosed this in Abuja on Monday when he received students of Nigeria Tulip International Colleges (NTIC) who won 48 awards for Nigeria in mathematics, geometry, robotics and various international academic competitions this year.

    Adamu said the plan to establish the commission was part of the ongoing reforms in the education sector by the federal government.

    He noted that while the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) regulate and intervene in tertiary education, there is no agency or commission to regulate secondary education as it is done with primary and junior secondary education through the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).

    The minister said: “This administration came on the mantra of change and reform and that is what we are going to do.

    “For secondary schools in particular, you know for a very long time, there had been a commission, just like there is Universal Basic Education Commission for primary and junior secondary schools, Tertiary Education Trust Fund for tertiary, this commission for secondary education is going to be revamped.”

    Adamu, who commended the students of the college for making Nigeria proud, added that the Tulip Colleges since coming into Nigeria about 20 years ago had been among the best from Secondary to the Tertiary.

    He expressed the readiness of the ministry of education to support the NTIC.

    According to him, emphasis in education should be on science subjects like engineering, technology, and Mathematical sciences.

    “I want to urge you to keep up what you have been doing. I assure you that the future of Nigeria rest in your hands,” he added.

    In his remarks, Principal of the college, Mr. Nwuazu Omeje, said the aim of the school is to groom the students to greatness through provision of quality education and good moral upbringing.

    According to him, the colleges do not just pay attention to education alone but also the character of the children, adding that one could not aspire to any reasonable position in the society without good character.

    The Principal disclosed that one unique thing that the colleges had done was provision of scholarship to the brilliant but indigent students.

    He said various mathematical competitions are organized in collaboration with the National Mathematical Centre, Abuja, where the intelligent students from poor background who could not afford the school fees are offered scholarship to study in the colleges.

    According to him, the aim of the NTIC is to complement the effort of the federal government in providing quality education to citizens.

    “A good number of our students are on scholarship and we don’t discriminate. We go to every state, local government to advertise the competition and the successful ones are brought into the school,” he said.

    The NTIC has branches in Abuja, Lagos, Ogun, Kano, Yobe and Kaduna,

     

     

  • ‘Ebonyi to reimburse students N1,000 paid for unified promotion exams’

    The Ebonyi Government says it will reimburse the N1,000 paid by each student for the aborted 2015/2016 unified promotion examination.

    Prof. John Eke, the Commissioner for Education, gave the assurance on Thursday in Abakaliki in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

    According to him, the state government has concluded arrangement to begin immediate reimbursement of the money to all the pupils and students that paid the money.

    Eke explained that the delay in reimbursement was to ensure that proper modality was worked out so that no one who paid would be left out.

    He said that government cancelled the proposed unified promotion examination for pupils and students in public and private schools in the 2015/2016 third term examination when it discovered that school authorities imposed additional illegal fees.

    “Let me begin by apologising to parents and guardians over the delay in the reimbursement of the fee to their children and wards and to appreciate their long patience.

    “We are trying to ensure that we put in place all the necessary arrangements for a hitch free refund, so that no one who paid will be left out in the reimbursement exercise.

    “The good news is that all the money collected from the school children, including the N,1000 approved by government and the additional illegal fees have been recovered and kept in government coffers.

    “I want to appeal to parents and guardians for more understanding as we will soon give back these monies to their owners,’’ Eke said.

    He said that ban on the collection of illegal levies in both private and public schools in the state was still in force and warned that the state government would deal with anyone contravening the ban.

    “We are committed to the free and compulsory universal basic education, hence, no school or head teacher found imposing or collecting any levy not approved by government, will go unpunished.

    “The Governor, Chief Dave Umahi has been regular in the payment of the Ebonyi counterpart fund with the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), hence we access our funds and use them to develop infrastructure and capacity of personnel,’’ he added.
    Eke explained that the campaign against examination malpractice, establishment of exam ‘magic’ Centers and truancy by teachers were yielding desired result.

  • 190 Jigawa teachers begin 5-day ICT training

    190 Jigawa teachers begin 5-day ICT training

    The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has begun a five-day Information and Communication Technology (ICT) training for 190 teachers in Hadejia, Jigawa State.

    The Programme Coordinator, Alhaji Babangida Haruna, made this known while inaugurating the exercise on Monday in Hadejia.

    Haruna said that the exercise was designed to expose the participants to computer appreciation and to build their individual capacities.

    He explained that the participants included education secretaries, teachers and support staff drawn from public schools in Hadejia District.

    Haruna said that the commission had concluded plans to distribute computers to teachers in the state to enhance teaching and learning process in the area.

    The coordinator said that the commission would subsequently conduct a similar exercise in  Birnin Kudu, Hadejia, Gumel, Dutse and Kazaure.

    According to him, the training programme was a  collaboration between the commission and Jigawa State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB).

    Also, Malam Musa Garba, the Education Secretary, Hadejia Local Government Council, commended the commission’s gesture, saying that it would help towards raising the standard of education.

    Garba called on the participants to pay attention to what they would learn to enable them to improve their teaching skills.

  • FG to train evaluators of military schools – Official

    The Federal Government is to train its Quality Assurance (QA) evaluators in order to ensure global standard in military schools across the country.

    Mr Charles Onojaife, the Deputy Director, Education, Ministry of Defence, made this disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja.

    Onojaife, who was commenting on the recently concluded 76th Joint Consultative Committee on Education Forum, said the training would update the evaluators on the new Quality Assurance instruments.

    “We have plans to train all our Quality Assurance evaluators in the new quality assurance instruments and standards.

    “We have been training them but this time, we will train them in the new areas that were revealed in the conference.

    “The training will ensure that modern instruments are applied in the inspection of schools and we will cover all Command, Navy and Air Force schools at the basic and secondary education levels,” he said.

    Onojaife said that the training would begin before the end of the year.

    He said that the ministry was working with the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) to include military school teachers in the Teachers Development Programme (TDP).

    He said that the training of teachers was a continuous exercise and it needed to be done regularly in order to upgrade the teachers to the current global standard.

    NAN recalls that the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, has recently flagged off the UBEC TDP to ensure the training and re-training of teachers in the country.

  • Plateau recruits 4,850 adhoc teachers

    Plateau recruits 4,850 adhoc teachers

    The Plateau Government has approved the recruitment of 4, 850 ad hoc teachers as part of efforts to address the acute shortage of teachers in the state.

    Prof. Mathew Sule, the Executive Chairman, State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Jos.

    He said that the move was to address staffing deficit that had affected the quality of education in the state.

    “Staffing deficit in public primary schools in Plateau has been a major concern and priority to the administration of Governor Lalong.

    “The governor has approved the recruitment of 4, 850 ad hoc teachers for primary schools and we expect them in the classes very soon,” he said.

    The official said that government would hold an orientation programme for the ad hoc teachers before posting them to their various stations.

    He said that 403 teachers, who have completed the Federal Teachers Training Scheme, have also been engaged to bridge the shortage of manpower in public schools.

    “The 403 teachers from the programme of 2013-2014 have been engaged under the auspices of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).

    “The programme has been running for more than a decade with the objective of recruiting these teachers at the end of their two years training, and this is the first time teachers will be absorbed in the state under the scheme.

    “We have notified those teachers that they would soon be called upon to commence work,’’ he added.

    Sule said that the government had accorded top priority to payment of teachers, “despite the financial difficulties in paying other civil servants”.

    He said that the biometric exercise for teachers was 95 per cent completed, and expressed confidence that the entire exercise would be completed by the end of May.