Minister of Education urged Governors to access education grants

Nigeria Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu has told state governments to provide matching grants to the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, to enable them gain access to additional funds. He said a situation where billions of naira were not accessed each year by state governments, was unhealthy for educational development.

Adamu, who flagged off the 2015 National Teacher Professional Development Programme at Government Junior Secondary School, Jabi, Abuja on Tuesday, also noted that professional and qualitative teachers were at the core of building a globally competitive and development oriented education system.

He said government had adopted a deliberate policy on teacher training to boost their quality and professional output. The Federal Government places high premium on the training of teachers and the education of managers at the basic level. But in addition to government’s concern for quality teachers, quantity is also of the essence. There is a wide gap between the number of teachers required and the current number available in the basic education sector.

That is why, in addition to its existing intervention through the agency of the UBEC, the Federal Government is working to recruit and inject 500,000 teachers into the basic education sector across the country. This, when completed would place more responsibilities and higher expectations on states and local governments in terms of the roles they would be playing in providing more teaching infrastructure and institutional materials. However, the inability of some state governments to promptly access the matching grant and other non-conditional grants from UBEC should be of great concern to all of us.”

Read more at www.scannewsnigeria.com