The Universal Basic Education Commission has begun the process of counting the number of teachers in both private and public schools in basic education across Nigeria.
The Executive Secretary of the Commission, Dr Hamid Bobboyi, made this known at a Consultative Meeting on the 2022 National Personnel Audit of all Basic Education Institutions in Abuja, on Monday.
He said that UBEC, in collaboration with the Federal Capital Territory Universal Basic Education Board and other critical stakeholders, were conducting the exercise to ensure up-to-date, variable and reliable data for implementation in educational programmes.
He said that the exercise was meant to consolidate on previous ones in a bid to make centralised comprehensive data available on basic education in Nigeria.
“The exercise is meant to conduct personnel audit of all educational institutions in the country offering full or basic education.
“This is for the purpose of collecting school data on enrolment, personnel and facilities among others, to enable us to plan effectively.
“Data enables us to plan effectively towards a systematic achievement of the educational objectives and track progress made.
“Data also helps in identifying the strength and weaknesses of implementation strategies and forms the basis for making informed decisions,” he said.
Bobboyi stressed that the absence of current and reliable data often led to faulty plans, whose objectives were difficult to achieve.
He added that the absence of data often led to over-estimating of needs, leading to waste of resources or under-estimating of needs leading to under-resourcing of programmes or activities.
The executive secretary added that the dearth of data on basic education remained a major challenge to its implementation in Nigeria and must be resolved.
According to him, education planners and decision makers, over time, used data that were not up-to-date or outrightly falsified.
“Nigeria’s school data for any particular period should be a national data available for use in and outside Nigeria.
“Basically, we should know the number and characteristics of learners, teachers and other personnel in schools as well as well what gaps exist.”
The Chairman of the 2022 National Personnel Audit of all Basic Education Institutions, Prof. Bala Zakari, said that the process of headcount was likely to commence in between June and July.
