The executive secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Aisha Garba, says the commission has begun delivering visible reforms in Nigeria’s struggling basic education sector, boasting that years of bureaucratic bottlenecks and stalled development have now been dismantled.

In a post shared on her official X (formerly Twitter) handle on Monday evening, Ms Garba, who was appointed by President Bola Tinubu in December 2024 and assumed office in January 2025, said her administration has broken a 20-year cycle of stagnation that made it difficult for state governments in Nigeria to access federal matching grants, leaving critical projects across the country abandoned.

“For 20 years, a rigid action plan made it nearly impossible for states to access matching grants. That is two decades of missed potential, stalled projects, and blocked progress,” she wrote. “We changed that.”

She said UBEC has removed long-standing barriers, allowing states to access resources with greater ease and transparency, resulting in what she described as “a new era of access, inclusion, and impact.”

Ms Garba claimed that under her watch, over three million children have been directly impacted through UBEC-supported interventions. She also disclosed that fund utilisation by the commission has now exceeded 60 per cent—an improvement from previous years, where billions of naira remained unspent despite crumbling schools across the federation.

She added that more than six million textbooks have been supplied to primary schools, alongside 420,009 library materials, 158,000 Nigerian History books, 740 interactive smart boards, 250 desktop computers for girls’ alternative high schools, and 140 talking computers for learners with special needs.

Beyond infrastructure and materials, the UBEC boss said the commission is focused on three main goals: increasing enrolment, bringing out-of-school children back to the classroom, and improving the overall quality of learning.

“Increased enrollment – and we are already seeing the numbers change from erstwhile low enrollment days. Out-of-school children are getting back in classrooms or accessing school for the first time,” she said. “We are upgrading both the tools and teaching to raise learning outcomes.”

Her statement comes against the backdrop of deep-rooted rot in Nigeria’s public basic education system. For years, state governments have failed to properly utilise UBEC’s counterpart funding—either due to administrative incompetence or the refusal to meet their own funding obligations. Meanwhile, millions of children, especially in rural and conflict-prone communities, continue to grow up without access to classrooms or learning materials.

Despite a constitutional guarantee of free and compulsory basic education in the country, most Nigerian public schools remain underfunded and overcrowded, with a severe shortage of trained teachers and basic instructional materials. UNICEF estimates that over 10 million Nigerian children are currently out of school—the highest number globally.

Still, Ms. Garba insists the current progress is only the beginning.

“This is not just reform,” she wrote. “This is a new era—and we are only just getting started.”