The management of the Rivers State Universal Basic Education Board (RSUBEB), Port Harcourt, has begun the process of educating staffers on the norms and policy guidelines guiding the mainstreaming of National Safeguard activities to the state and local government areas in the state with regards to the implementation of Better Education Service Delivery for all (BESDA) and its environmental and social safeguards in the state.
To this end, a one-day sub-level advocacy/sensitisation meeting has been held at the board’s headquarters in Port Harcourt with a view to sharing ideas on the concept of social/environmental risks and hazards toward the implementation of BESDA P4R programme as well as cascade the developed workplan from UBEC National Safeguards for uniformity/access to the LGAs to reduce risks/hazards.
Speaking while declaring open the one-day advocacy and sensitisation meeting at the board’s conference room in Port Harcourt, the Executive Chairman of the board, Ven Fyneface Akah, commended the UBEC, Federal Ministry of Education, World Bank and the Rivers State Government for the realisation of the BESDA programme in the state in particular, and across the benefiting states of the federation for the development of education in the country.
Akah averred that because of the importance the board attaches to the safety and wellbeing of its staff, the programme was designed to acquaint them and arouse their consciousness with safety measures demanded for the implementation of the BESDA programme in the state.
The RSUBEB helmsman charged them, as critical stakeholders in the education sector, to rise up to the demand of the time and play the role expected of them.
“We must have an mind open and focus, and teach others to equip us and enable us be safe guardians of BESDA, and ensure that we transfer the knowledge gotten to others”, he added.
He called on the beneficiary communities and parents of BESDA schools to protect the infrastructure in their areas, adding that BESDA was a project for result (PIR) programme targeted for those out-of-school children.
Also speaking, the BESDA Coordinator and RSUBEB Director of Research and Planning, Engr Emmanuel Ogbugo, said that the BESDA programme was designed to tackle the problem of out-of-school children in schools, especially in improving literacy among them, adding that 13 million of Nigerian children were currently out of school.
He informed the participants that the programme has been extended to 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, adding that about 1,225 centres have been established in the state.
In his opening speech, the RSUBEB BESDA Team Leader in the board, Mr. Ogwe Ibe Adirah, stated that the objectives of the meeting were, among other things, to mainstream the framework to activities in the Local Government Education Authorities, strengthen the system for equitable access and equity, ensure that preventive and mitigating measures were put in place in terms of violence-related occurrences as well as record types of abuse and molestation in schools/centres, monitor, manage and report design strategies to avoid future occurrences.

By: Akujobi Amadi