UBEC launches digital platform to track basic education projects, state funds

The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has introduced a new digital platform that will allow parents and communities to monitor basic education projects and track funds accessed by state governments.

The initiative comes as the commission prepares to begin implementing its 10-year Universal Basic Education Roadmap, covering 2026 to 2035, from October.

UBEC Executive Secretary, Dr Aisha Garba, disclosed this on Monday in Abuja during a two-day consultative workshop with chairmen of the 36 State Universal Basic Education Boards and directors of the commission.

Garba said the Basic Education Action Plan Management System was developed to strengthen transparency, planning and monitoring of UBEC interventions under the new 10-year roadmap.

She explained that the platform would provide stakeholders, including parents and communities, with better access to information on education projects and funds allocated to states, thereby improving oversight of basic education interventions across the country.

According to her, the platform will provide information on funds accessed by states and projects being implemented, allowing communities to monitor interventions in their schools and hold relevant authorities accountable.

“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. With that, the community can hold us accountable for the money we have accessed from UBEC, and also the projects we’re doing on the ground, as well as the quality of projects we’re doing”, she said.

She said the digital platform had been under development for more than a month, adding that SUBEB chairmen had been onboarded ahead of its full deployment in October.

The development is part of UBEC’s broader shift towards a “whole school approach” to basic education interventions, under which states will be required to identify the comprehensive needs of individual schools before their action plans can be approved.

Garba said the approach was intended to move the commission away from isolated projects, such as constructing classrooms or supplying furniture without addressing other essential requirements in the same school.

“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. 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 added.

She said where a school lacked fencing, toilets, furniture or computers, such needs would be incorporated into its intervention plan. Additional classrooms, she added, would also have to be matched with adequate toilet facilities based on projected enrolment.

The commission’s move comes amid persistent challenges around access, infrastructure and learning outcomes in Nigeria’s basic education sector. UNICEF estimates that 10.5 million children aged five to 14 are out of school in Nigeria, while learning assessments have continued to show significant gaps in foundational literacy and numeracy.

Garba also announced a revision of the matching-grant formula to give states greater flexibility to deploy UBEC funds according to their specific education needs.

She said the previous approach had largely focused on new infrastructure, even though some states now required funding for the renovation 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,” she said.

She said the revised framework could also accommodate interventions such as enrolment materials and additional teachers where states identified increased enrolment as a priority.

The UBEC boss said the new roadmap would formally commence in the first week of October and would guide basic education interventions across the country through 2035.

Also speaking, the Dean of SUBEB Chairmen, Prof Shehu Adaramaja, said the consultation was necessary to establish a common direction for basic education delivery over the next decade.

“In the next two days, we’ll pay attention to all the strategies and the initiatives toward the development of a roadmap for the next 10 years on how to provide access, provide quality service, and of course, strengthen our systems in line with our new basic education management system,” he said.

Adaramaja, who is also the Kwara State SUBEB chairman, said directors of research and statistics would participate in developing the framework that would subsequently guide the states’ basic education action plans.

Earlier, the UBEC Director of Physical Planning, Arc Nura Ibrahim, said the workshop would enable stakeholders to review and validate the proposed roadmap, drawing on their technical expertise and experience in implementing basic education programmes across the states.

The new digital system is expected to provide an additional layer of public oversight as UBEC and the states implement the 10-year roadmap, with project information and funding details made available for communities to monitor interventions in their schools.

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