SBMC-SIP: UBEC organises 5-day training for its master trainers
The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) is taking another bold step in facilitating result-oriented advocacy, sensitization and mobilization of grassroot actors for improved school development.
Being fully aware of the fact that the overall success of basic education in Nigeria depends largely on the level of community awareness, participation and support to the programme, UBEC is instituting a new intervention for school development whereby basic education stakeholders especially those at the school level will play a more decisive role in initiating and executing projects that have direct bearing on the improvement of access, quality and equity in basic education delivery in their domains.
The new UBEC intervention which is titled School Based Management Committee School Improvement Programme (SBMC-SIP) focuses on the implementation of priority school level projects through indigenous community-initiated self-help projects anchored, implemented, maintained and sustained by community members but with financial and technical support from UBEC.
In view of the need to ensure that school level actors who will be part of the SBMC-SIP process and who will manage the huge resources earmarked for the programme are adequately prepared and provided the necessary skills, UBEC is organizing a 5-day training for master trainers who will in turn train school level officials and organs implementing the SBMC-SIP.
UBEC executive Secretary, Dr. Hamid Bobboyi, represented by UBEC Director, Social Mobilization, Alhaji Bello Kagara, while declaring the 5-day training open, urged participants to demonstrate strong commitment by devoting themselves to the training in order to derive optimum benefit from it. He further noted that since SBMCs have been globally recognized as school development agents, UBEC intends to create an enabling environment for their active involvement in the SIP towards reinvigorating community support for school development initiatives; promoting community participation, complementing government efforts in the management of schools and also serving as catalysts for community ownership of basic education delivery services.
The Master Training workshop which is one of the pre-SBMC-SIP take-off activities is seen as key to the success of the programme. During the training, participants will be imparted with skills on mobilizing community organs especially SBMCs in identifying school level needs-based priority projects, guiding project implementation, monitoring and supervision of approved projects in line with the standards specified in the SIP Implementation Manual. In view of this and in line with its resolve to provide the necessary framework for this intervention to succeed, UBEC has also developed a comprehensive Social Mobilization Handbook to support the SBMC-SIP.
UBEC anticipates that the new initiative which emphasizes effective engagement with various school level partners will further promote basic education delivery and ownership in the country. 137 trainees drawn from UBEC and SUBEBS are involved in the 5-day exercise. The participants so trained will be required to replicate the training for SBMCs at State and Local Government Education Authority levels and where necessary, Community Based Organizations (CBOs) and Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs). The training which commenced on Monday, March 18th, 2019, is being held at Idrinana Hotel, Lokongoma, Phase 2, Lokoja, Kogi State and will be rounded off on Friday, March 22nd, 2019. Resource persons for the training are drawn from UNICEF, the academia, education and civil society organizations.
