The Federal Government, in its continued efforts towards
ensuring the success of the Universal Basic Education (UBE)
Programme has acquired about 2,870,460 volume of books to
be distributed to 370 schools, ten in each state in the
federation.
National Co-ordinator of UBE, Professor Gidado Tahir made
this known at the Flag-Off of the Federal Library Book Project
and distribution of instructional materials ceremony on
Monday in Abuja.
The Minister of Education Professor Babalola Borishade
who was represented by the Acting Permanent Secretary of
the Ministry, Alhaji Usman Ahmed said the event was a demonstration
of government's commitment to providing qualitative education
to Nigerian Children.
While noting the support of development partners towards
the realisation of the UBE objectives, with World Bank already
expending over N1 billion on the provision of Supplementary
Reading materials to 1110 focus schools in 16 states of
the Federation, Borishade appealed to governments at state
and local levels to take proper care of the books and ensure
that they get to the end users, which are the children and
teachers.
The Minister said that the UBE will soon embark on monitoring
exercise to verify if the books actually got to the designated
schools.
Tahir, in his own address, said the excercise became necessary
following the obvious decline in the acquisition of basic
skills in public schools, especially that of reading, as
was revealed in the Monitoring of Learning Achievement (MLA)
Survey conducted by UBE's Department of Monitoring and Evaluation
in 2001.
He stressed that the Non-Focus Schools, which are designated
to serve as models for other cluster schools in the states,
be the sole beneficiaries of the project.
He listed some of the instructional materials that have
so far been procured by the Federal Government to include
6.5 million pencils with erase, 3.2 million sharpeners,
1.3 million drawing books, 45,000 educational charts, 1.7
million rulers, three million biros, 90,000 bags and 1,100
first aid kits.
Other items such as crayons, water paint and terrestrial
globes, he said, are in the process of being procured.
