Smart Education: Nigeria Begins Implementation of Effective Schools Programme

Kuni Tyessi in Abuja

The Nigerian Government, through the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), has commenced the implementation of the Effective Schools Programme (ESP) to boost smart education in Nigeria.

Executive Secretary, UBEC, Dr. Hamid Bobboyi, stated this at a meeting of UBEC with chairmen of State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs), from the 36 states of the federation and the FCT on the Effective Schools Programme held in Abuja.

He said the meeting marked the take-off of the Effective Schools Programme implementation as necessary human and materials resources to boost the smart education in the country are being fine-tuned and distributed.

According to him, “The distribution of instructional materials, installation of a satellite-based education system, and training of head teachers and teachers in effective schools would follow immediately.”

Bobboyi urged SUBEBs chairmen to expedite action on the implementation of the programme aimed at improving teaching and learning conditions as well as outcomes in schools.

ESP seeks to ensure collective actions at national and state levels in ensuring that prescribed minimum standards in basic education service delivery are attained and further scaled up towards ensuring the effectiveness of teaching and learning with commensurate learning outcomes.

He said the Effective School Programme was conceptualised by UBEC to test the efficacy of the minimum standards in Universal Basic Education (UBE) delivery and provide lessons for progressively scaling up these standards in all schools in Nigeria over the next six years.

“It is expected that over the life of the programme, the participating schools will progressively improve the quality of their UBE service delivery and move up the quality ladder to become not just effective schools but outstanding schools in terms of quality of educational outputs.”

Bobboyi stressed that as the programme progresses, additional improvements would be made in the schools with the goal of meeting the minimum standards in basic education, which have been lacking in many schools.

“So, two years ago, we started dialogue with the SUBBEBs chairmen on how to re-engineer the school system and we started with smart schools in each state capital and now adding two each to expand it to one smart school per each senatorial district. The schools are equipped with modern technology, digital pedagogy and so on.

“Then what do we do with the other schools that are already functioning? The purpose here is to make sure that those schools which are functioning are also upgraded systematically over a period of time to be able now to function as schools that are effective and can deliver at all levels of teaching and learning.

“That was what brought the idea of the Effective School Programme but the next stage that we have was the merger of e-learning centres with the Effective Schools Programme so that they become one entity. Every school that is effective must have a digital component that will ensure that it can deliver effective teaching and learning.”

Bobboyi said the implementation of the ESP would lead to investment in the improvement of learning conditions and processes to produce basic education graduates with effective life skills.

He said equipping students with skills would enable them to effectively participate and compete favourably in the 21st-century knowledge economy.

Also, the Dean of Chairmen, SUBEB, Prof. Shehu Adaramaja, said the transformation of the e-learning programme into the Effective Schools Programme would help improve the education outcomes of Nigerian students.

He said Nigeria is second in terms of literacy level in Africa, noting that the full implementation of the smart education would rank Nigeria as first in Africa.