The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) is introducing a new template to streamline the disbursement of federal funds for the Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme.
The new template aims to address existing challenges and enable state governments to access funds more efficiently.
Executive Secretary of the Commission, Aisha Garba, made this known on Tuesday during an interactive workshop on the new templates for the preparation of work plans to access UBE Intervention Funds, with Chairmen of State Universal Basic Education Boards and Desk officers from 36 States of the Federation and FCT held in Abuja.
According to the commission, the new template, being subjected to further scrutiny and validation at the workshop,p would remove some of the gaps and encumbrances associated with access to the intervention funds by the state governments, which often lead to billions of unaccessed funds.
The UBEC boss noted that the federal government, through the commission, recently had to realign the delivery of basic education in line with four strategic pillars to ensure increased access and quality education delivery in the States and the FCT.
According to her, the pillars are: “Expanding access to UBE especially for rural and underserved populations; enhancing quality of teaching and learning nationwide; strengthening accountability and effective use of basic education finances; and optimising monitoring and institutional systems for quality service delivery.
“Accordingly, the Hope Education Project of the present administration is a performance-for-reward project for states that apply their resources for education judiciously, especially in achieving the four pillars.
“Consequently, this has necessitated the need to develop new templates that will enable SUBEBs to prepare work plans for accessing the UBE Intervention Funds in line with the four pillars as well as the implementation of the New Hope Projects.”
The Deputy Executive Secretary, General Services of the Commission, Tunde Ajibulu, while giving the welcome address, said the realignment of the delivery of basic education necessitated the need to come up with new templates for the access of UBE intervention funds.
“Therefore, this interactive workshop on the new templates is timely, and we expect you, as the implementers of basic education in your various states, to contribute positively and come up with workable templates.”
