The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC ) is set to end isolated school projects as it begins implementation of its 10-year Universal Basic Education Roadmap, 2026–2035, in the first week of October.
Under the new approach, the commission will require states to assess the comprehensive needs of individual schools before their intervention plans can be approved, replacing disconnected projects with a “whole school approach” to basic education development.
Dr. Aisha Garba, UBEC Executive Secretary, announced the commencement of the roadmap’s implementation in Abuja on Monday at a two-day Consultative Workshop with chairmen of the 36 State Universal Basic Education Boards, SUBEBs, and directors of the commission.
The programme, which also featured the unveiling of the Basic Education Action Plan Management System, BEAPMS, comes as UBEC adopts a “whole school approach” that requires states to address the comprehensive needs of individual schools rather than implement disconnected projects.
Garba explained that under the framework, a state seeking intervention for a school would first have to identify the full range of gaps in that school before its action plan could be approved by UBEC.
“For any state to do renovation, you have to do a whole school approach. A whole school approach means, you take a school and you look at all the gaps,” she said.
According to her, the new system would end the practice of constructing a few classrooms or supplying furniture without providing other essential facilities required to create a functional learning environment.
“You don’t just put in a furniture or you drop two blocks of classrooms and you leave because you want to give out awards. No, you have to take in all the comprehensive needs of that particular school,” she said.
Under the framework, states will be expected to identify and address critical gaps within individual schools before their action plans can receive UBEC approval.
Garba explained that where a school lacks facilities such as fencing or toilets, those needs would form part of the intervention plan, while additional classrooms would be matched with the required toilet facilities based on expected enrolment.
The commission is also revising its matching grant formula to allow states to deploy UBEC funding according to their specific education needs.
According to her, the previous formula had largely focused on new infrastructure, leaving some states unable to access funds where their priority was no longer the construction of new schools but the maintenance and improvement of existing facilities.
“The new formula allows each state to look at their own needs. If their needs on the ground is furniture, if their needs on the ground is renovating all schools to ensure that our schools now have fencing, have computers, have furniture, then they are allowed to do that,” she said.
She added that the revised framework could support other interventions, including enrolment materials and additional teachers, where states identify increased enrolment as a priority.
The digital BEAPMS platform, according to Garba, is another component of the reform and is intended to improve planning, transparency and monitoring of basic education projects nationwide.
“The system will also bring communities into the monitoring of projects implemented under the 10-year roadmap, with the platform to be made public for parents and community members to track projects, funding and the quality of interventions delivered in their schools,” she noted.
“This will also allow us to bring in the community to be part of the monitoring of the projects that we do on the ground,” she said.
Garba added that information on the amount of money accessed by each state would be published on the commission’s website alongside details of projects being implemented.
“With that, community can hold us accountable to the money we have accessed from UBEC, and then also the projects we’re doing on the ground, as well as the quality of projects we’re doing,” she said.
The commission said BEAPMS had been under development for more than a month, while the SUBEB chairmen had been fully onboarded ahead of the commencement of full implementation in October.
Also speaking, Prof. Shehu Adaramaja, who doubles as the Dean of SUBEB Chairmen and Kwara State SUBEB Chairman, described the consultation as important to establishing a common direction for basic education delivery over the next decade.
“In the next two days, we’ll pay attention to all the strategies and the initiatives toward the development of a roadmap for the next 10 years on how to provide access, provide quality service, and of course, strengthen our systems in line with our new basic education management system,” he said.
Adaramaja explained that the meeting was structured as a hands-on exercise, with directors of research and statistics expected to participate actively in developing the framework that would subsequently guide their states’ basic education action plans.
According to him, UBEC’s intervention mandate was no longer limited to physical infrastructure, with other components now being incorporated to strengthen the delivery of basic education services.
Earlier, UBEC Director of Physical Planning, Arc. Nura Ibrahim, explained that the exercise would enable stakeholders to review and validate the proposed roadmap while drawing on their technical expertise and experience in implementing basic education programmes across the states.