Niger Up To Date On Basic Education Counterpart Funding – NSUBEB

Niger State Universal Basic Education Board (NSUBEB) is to adopt strategy for the training and retraining of teachers at basic education levels even as the board has met its counterpart fund payments at the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).

Executive Chairman of the board, Mallam Muhammad Baba Ibrahim, stated this at a media briefing to set agenda in line with the new Niger initiative in basic education.

He disclosed that the board had paid its counterpart fund to the commission up to the 2022 backlog based on the directive of Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago that all counterpart funding obligations in the state should be honoured up to date.

The NSUBEB chairman said; “In Niger State, we are lagging behind in terms of how much we have accessed. We have engaged with UBEC to say that the structure you give us does not really address the problems of our own peculiarity. We want to retain fundamentals of what you want to give us or we want you allow us some room no matter how small to look at our content.

“We don’t have any issue about providing counterpart funds. We have paid 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 but we have not accessed the intervention. So, we are up to date in the payment of counterpart funding. Why we have not been able to access is because we have to be realistic and look at the work plan we have on ground. So, we are doing a review that is why we have not been able to access the fund.”

He added that emphasis would be placed on updating the knowledge of basic education teachers to meet up with the current realities and trends.

He said teaching of arts and crafts as a subject in primary and junior secondary schools had been reintroduced in the state as one of the measures to help pupils discover their creativity and talents as well as stimulate job creation, teaching and learning.