The executive secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Hamid Bobboyi, says 34 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) are yet to access the 2024 Universal Basic Education (UBE) matching grant.

Mr Bobboyi disclosed this in Abuja on Monday during an oversight function of the Senate Committee on Education (Basic and Secondary) to the commission.

He said Katsina and Kaduna states were the two states that had so far accessed the 2024 first and second quarter of their matching grant.

Giving the details of accessed matching grants from 2020 to 2024, he explained that unaccessed UBE grants had posed challenges for basic and junior secondary education.

“For the 2020 UBE matching grant, 34 states and FCT have accessed the 2020 matching grant; two states—Abia and Ogun—have not accessed it.

“For the 2021 matching grant, 33 states and FCT have accessed while Abia, Imo, and Ogun have not, while in 2022, 29 states and FCT have accessed with Abia, Adamawa, Anambra, Ebonyi, Imo, Ogun, and Oyo yet to.

“For 2023, 25 states have accessed the first to fourth quarter matching grant,” he said.

Mr Bobboyi added that N263,043,551,250.30 and N103,288,086,976.00, being two per cent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF), were allocated to the commission under the 2024 and 2023 Appropriation Acts.

He added that N103,288,086,976.00 was released for 2023 utilisation, representing 100 per cent release for the 12 months, while 219,202,959,370.00 was released for 2024, representing 83.33 per cent release for 10 months.

Ranking the performances of the states based on geopolitical zones as of October 31 in accessing the UBE matching grant, Mr Bobboyi commended the North-West Zone for 100 per cent performance.

He said the South-South ranked second, with 97.92 per cent of accessed grants, while the North-Central zone was in the third position with 97.76 per cent accessed grants and the North-East zone in the fourth position with 97.57 per cent.

Mr Bobboyi ranked the South-West zone in the fifth position with 92.28 per cent and the South-East zone in the sixth position with 85.37 per cent accessed grant.

He explained that some state governments’ lack of political will and commitment to basic education was a major challenge.

Mr Bobboyi said other challenges were the low budgetary allocation to basic education at state and local government levels and low teacher quality.

“Non-compliance with the federal government’s directive on the teaching of history in basic school and the high number of out-of-school children, among others, are also some of the challenges,” he said.

In their various remarks, Senate Committee on Education members lamented the high rate of out-of-school children.

Senator Victor Umeh, representing Anambra, lamented the still high number of out-of-school children in the northern part despite the higher allocation in the states.

Similarly, Senator Sunday Katung, representing Kaduna South, said the stoppage of history in basic education was damaging to the younger generation, hence the need to revisit the policy.

The committee chairman, Lawal Usman, commended the commission on its activities so far, noting that the National Assembly was aware of the obsolete nature and challenges of its enabling law in its operations.

Mr Usman urged the commission to consider, for immediate implementation, the resolution of the committee at a closed session with the executive secretary and his management team during the retreat of the commission and the committee held in Lagos.

(NAN)