The Nigeria Governors’ Forum has called for a review of the Universal Basic Education Commission Act to reduce the 20 million out-of-school children across the country.
NGF’s call came on the heels of trapped N64bn fund in UBEC meant for state governments to facilitate access to quality basic education for all.
According to The PUNCH, the NGF’s Education Advisor, Dr Ebenezer Leo The Great, disclosed that N64bn was trapped due to the inability of state governments to raise the 50% counterpart of the amount they need.
“We’ve also been pushing for what we call the accelerated basic education programme for those who didn’t attend Western education. We just give them a window. It is now a policy to acquire foundational literacy and numeracy and be integrated into the conventional school system, he added.
Leo The Great declared that these states would have to support the provision of necessities to each child go to school, adding that it was of no good to the Federal Government, states, and Nigerians if monies in UBEC were not assessed because of the payment of 50% counterpart fund.
The NGF Education Advisor stated, “The issue is the difficulty faced by states to access about N64bn fund in UBEC.
“We’re looking at how to change the legislation, amend the UBEC Act to reduce the matching grant. Reduce the matching grant that is the counterpart fund that States are supposed to pay to access the fund.
“The challenge is that we do not have the state with the same fiscal balance. Some states have money through statutory allocation, through the internally generated fund, others don’t have the same kind of fiscal balance that will enable them to cough out money to be able to pay and then access the fund.”
