Deputy News Editor Rivers State Newspaper Corporation, Mr Reward Akwu in a group photograph with His Glory Basic Foundation School Igwuruta, Port Harcourt during excusion visit to the Corporation, recently.
Photo: Prince Dele Obinna.

Executive Secretary of
the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Alhaji, Dikko Suleiman has called on all state Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEBS) to complete the series of trainings earmarked for their Quality Assurance Officers since 2014 towards attaining the aims and objectives of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Programme in Nigeria.
Alhaji Suleiman, who was represented by the Deputy Director, Quality Assurance, UBEC, Mr Sylvester Eyinnaya who made the call at the closing of a five-day training programme for Quality Assurance officers on Friday, organised by the Rivers State UBEB, said the training is intended to have lots of positive impact in school’s inputs, processes and outputs.
Quality Assurance,” he said, is committed to improving all aspects of educational quality,  recognised and measurable learning outcomes as well as contributing to the achievements of acceptable standards that are maintained and enhanced through human and materials resources of good quality.
“This training, with the theme: “Strengthening the Capacity of Quality Assurance Officers for Effective Service Delivery”, is coming up at a time that it has become imperative that we must improve on our service delivery and that our service should have quality in terms of classroom practice and school management”, he said.
He noted that although the training was supposed to be held in 2014, that it has been held in 2016 does not make much difference since the same results will be achieved.
“I, therefore wish to seize this opportunity to call on all SUBEBs to expedite action to complete this series of trainings without further delay”, he urged.
Suleiman used the opportunity to commend Rivers UBEB for commencing the programme “It is heartening that Rivers UBEB has finally keyed into this training of its Quality Assurance Officers with part of the Teachers Professional Development (TPD) fund despite the delay”, he concluded.
In her welcome address, the Permanent Secretary Rivers State UBEB, Dame Roseline O. Chukwuigwe, noted the importance of education.
According to her, “education is the key to sustainable development and it has been widely acclaimed that no nation can develop without giving quality training to our teachers.
“It is in recognition of this that the UBEC commenced series of intervention programmes in the areas of basic education to ensure that the citizenry improves’, she said.
The Permanent Secretary, however, noted that the education sector has key challenges of inadequate funding, inaccessibility to human capital development, proper coordination and monitoring in system.
She explained further that it was in a bid to address this incoordination that the UBEC urged states UBEBs and FCT to priorities the capacity building programmes for Quality Assurance officers.
At the end of the day, it was expected that UBEC should be able to ensure three key things: that there is an increased budgetary allocation for evaluators; that the Capacity of Quality Assurance officers are strengthened through training and retraining programmes; and that there is an increased incentives for teachers.
She, therefore urged participants to take the training very seriously and ensure that your participation will bring about better attitude to work ethics, promote teacher quality, and reposition the education sector in Rivers state.

Sogbeba Dokubo