FOREWORD

Basic Education is statutorily the responsibility of the States and the Local Governments. The Intervention of the Federal Government in the sub-sector is to assist States and the Local Government Areas for “the purpose of uniform and qualitative basic education throughout Nigeria”. A major step in the renewed commitment of the Federal Government and the UBE Commission to improve basic education delivery processes across the country is the development of the Medium Term Basic Education Strategic Plan (MTBESP) at state level and the aggregation of the States’ plans into a the National Medium Term Basic Education Strategic Plan (NMTBESP).

The enactment of the Universal Basic Education Act, 2004 gave legal and institutional reinforcements to the UBE programme. The Act establishes the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) at the Federal level for national coordination and monitoring of programme implementation. It also stipulates legislative obligations for the establishment of the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) by each of the 36 States and the FCT for programme Implementation. Specifically, Section 9 of the Act stipulates that one of the major functions of UBEC is to:

“collate and prepare after consultation with the States and Local Governments, periodic Master Plans for a balanced and coordinated development of Basic Education in Nigeria, including areas of possible intervention in the provision of adequate basic education facilities.”

The Act also makes provisions for the establishment of the UBE Intervention Fund (UBE-IF) of not less than 2% of the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) of the Federal Government that guarantees sustainable funding for implementing the UBE programme. The implementation of the programme has remained on course since Inception, although with less than satisfactory results. Nonetheless, the UBE-IF, along with other funding sources, have boosted public and private sector investments in basic education by all tiers of government, non-state shareholders and international development partners. The need to translate this boost into yielding the expected results is the focus of the emphasis on development of Plans for the sub-sector that would guide interventions, lead to efficient utilization of resources and enable systematic tracking. However, increased funding has not appeared to have yielded the expected outcomes

It is instructive that poor planning, and oftentimes lack of planning, has been identified as a major contributory factor to Nigeria’s underperformance in basic education provision. Lack of quality planning has resulted in a regime of inefficient and ineffective coordination, poor resource mobilization and utilization, and limited progress in education service delivery.