Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) said it has introduced a programme that would facilitate advocacy, sensitisation and mobilisation of grassroots actors for improved academic and infrastructural development in public schools.
UBEC said it observed serious gaps in community and stakeholders’ involvement in the conception and execution of developmental projects in basic education institutions, hence the poor progress being made in that regard.
The introduction of the programme, School Based Management Committee (SBMC), which is globally recognized as school development agents, according to UBEC’s Executive Secretary, Dr. Hamid Bobboyi, in a statement, would bridge the gap and herald significant improvement in infrastructural development in schools.
He explained that the programme would focus on the implementation of priority school level projects through indigenous community-initiated projects that would be anchored, implemented, maintained and sustained by community members with financial and technical support from UBEC.
Bobboyi, who was represented by UBEC Director of Social Mobilisation, Bello Kagara, confirmed that 137 actors were trained on how to mobilise community organs, especially SBMCs to identify priority projects, guiding project implementation, monitoring and supervision of approved projects in line with standards specified in the SIP implementation manual.
He was optimistic that comprehensive social mobilisation handbook that was recently developed by UBEC for the project will be of great help to SBMCs.