Thirty-four state governors and the Federal Capital Territory have failed to access the N369 billion matching grant meant for the development of basic education in their various states, it has been revealed.
This was revealed by the Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Hamid Bobboyi.
He said the N369 billion is the 2024 Universal Basic Education (UBE) matching grant extended by the commission.
Mr Bobboyi said N263,043,551,250.30 and N103,288,086,976.00 being two percent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF), were allocated to the commission under the 2024 and 2023 Appropriation Acts.
He said that Katsina and Kaduna states were the two states that had so far accessed the 2024 first and second quarter of their matching grant.
Speaking in Abuja on Monday during an oversight function of the Senate Committee on Education (Basic and Secondary) to the commission, Mr Bobboyi said this attitude by governors posed challenges for basic and junior secondary education.
“For the 2020 UBE matching grant, 34 states and FCT have accessed the 2020 matching grant, two states-Abia and Ogun have not accessed it.
“For 2021 matching grant, 33 states and FCT have accessed while Abia, Imo and Ogun have not, while in 2022, 29 States and FCT have accessed Abia, Adamawa, Anambra, Ebonyi, Imo, Ogun and Oyo.
“For 2023, 25 states have accessed the first to fourth quarter matching grant,” he said.
The ES said N103,288,086,976.00 was released for 2023 utilisation, representing 100 per cent release for the 12 months while N219,202,959,370.00 was released for 2024, representing 83.33 percent release for 10 months.
Ranking the performances of the states based on geo-political zones as at Oct. 31, in accessing the UBE matching grant, Bobboyi commended the Northwest for 100 per cent performance.
He said the South South zone ranked second, with 97.92 per cent accessed grant, while the North Central zone was in the third position with 97.76 accessed grant and North East zone in the fourth position with 97.57 per cent.
He ranked the Southwest in the fifth position with 92.28 per cent and South East zone in the sixth position with 85.37 per cent accessed grant.
Highlighting the challenges of the commission, Bobboyi explained the lack of political will and commitment by some state governments on basic education as a major challenge.
Other challenges he said were low level of budgetary allocation to basic education at states and local government levels and low teacher quality.
“Non-compliance with the federal government’s directive on the teaching of history in basic school and high number of out-of-school children, among others, are also some of the challenges,” he said.
In their various remarks, members of the Senate Committee on Education lamented the high rate of out-of- school children.
Sen. Victor Umeh, representing Anambra lamented the still high number of out-of-school children in the northern part of the country, in spite of the higher allocation in the states.
Earlier, Chairman of the committee, Sen. Lawal Usman, commended the commission on its activities so far, noting that the National Assembly was aware of the obsolete nature and challenges of its enabling law in its operations.
