AN EVALUATION OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE UNIVERSAL BASIC EDUCATION (UBE) PROGRAMME

Introduction

1.1 Background to the Study

The current Universal Basic Education (UBE) scheme in Nigeria is a product of an earlier educational scheme, programme and educational decisions. It is an offshoot of previous schemes, which could be said to have been bedeviled by problems and which the present scheme is expected to correct.

Social Studies according to Dubey (1980) is the investigation of human activities; it studies man at home, at work, workshop, in politics, at play, in the village, in the nation, everywhere, engaged in his busy programme of living and it is particularly interested in man’s problems about which decision must be made. The content of social studies is drawn from sociology, economics, political science, anthropology, geography, history, psychology, social-psychology, literature, arts and music, religion, philosophy, achealogy, demography, linguistics, communication, science… most of which constitute the social sciences and the humanities (Mezieobi and Domike, 1996).
The other sources of social studies programme include resource persons and places, oral historiography, contemporary issues, mass media, etc.

In the light of the definitions and descriptions of social studies as stated above, one of the contemporary public issues that affect the Nigerian society today is the introduction and implementation of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme of which social studies is one the core subjects offered.

The 1950s laid the foundation stone for later educational developments in the 1960s and beyond. Educational efforts of the 1950s were themselves determined by the history of educational growth from the fourth decade of the 19th century. By implication therefore, explosion in education in the Western region had tremendous influence on other regions. It should be recalled that the 1950 Macpherson constitution created regional houses that were responsible to the central government in Lagos. The constitution also empowered the regional houses to make laws on education. The effect of this was that regions grew differently in educational provisions (Aluede, 1992), (Kosemani and Okorosaye-Oruibite, 1995).

In the Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo had the opportunity of putting his own concept of education into practice. Thus, as the leader of the Action Group (AG), he placed priority on education by drawing up a comprehensive educational development plan for the whole of western region which Edo state was part of, and adhered strictly to this policy because he believed that to educate the children and enlighten the illiterate adults, is to lay a solid foundation not only for the future social and economic progress, but also, for the political stability of the region in particular and the country in general. He therefore, introduced free, universal and compulsory primary education (UPE) in 1955 which is synonymous with his name in Nigeria today (Taiwo, 1980).

The Eastern Regional House that introduced the UPE scheme under the leadership of Dr. Azikiwe in January 1957 followed the Western Region’s example. The Lagos area that was cut off from the educational programmes of the Western Region in 1954 when it was declared a Federal Territory, equally introduced the Universal Primary Education (UPE) scheme in January 1957.

It should, however, be noted that educational development in the Northern Region lagged behind in what was being experienced in Lagos and other regions, because, while the Western and the Eastern Regions were struggling hard to surpass each other in the south, the Northern Region did not come to terms with the challenges of the time.
However, the Federal Government of Nigeria became conscious of the dangers of disparity in educational development in a nation state and therefore introduced the UPE scheme throughout the federation in 1976. Thereafter, there was the regularization of primary education system throughout Nigeria. The differences that had existed in the different regions were checked by the Federal Government’s decision that all states of the federation must run similar programme (Itedjere, 1997).

The recent re-launching of a similar programme − the Universal Basic Education (UBE) scheme by the Federal Government of Nigeria on the 30th of September 1999 would suggest that after the failure of the earlier programme − UPE scheme, and a careful analysis of the factors that brought about the failure of the earlier scheme would have taken place.

The Universal Basic Education (UBE) is a programme designed to transmit a common cultural heritage. The training of children and adolescents in the norms, values and aspirations of the nation is a veritable instrument for national integration and development. It is expected that educational reforms or re-organization would be carried out to enable Nigeria’s education cater for the future professional needs (Ayeni, 2000).

In addition to playing the noble role of cultural transmission in the modern society today, the UBE programme is designed to provide universal literacy, numeracy and enlightenment. The desire to inculcate in children the skills of literacy, numeracy and the ability to communicate made the UBE programme worthwhile (Aboyi, 2004).
Apart from the above, there is the need to lay a solid foundation for scientific and reflective thinking, character and moral training and the development of sound attitude, and above all, develop in the child the ability to adapt to his changing environment (FGN, 1981).

The UBE programme, if faithfully implemented by governments, it will not only be a powerful instrument for achieving poverty alleviation, but also, a secured means of ensuring proper and adequate internalization of sound democratic culture. As a matter of fact, this type of political socialization is what we need in order to stabilize our polity, which will in turn guarantees economic growth and development (Osahon and Osahon, 2006).

Before the launch of the UBE scheme, the transition rate from primary school to junior secondary school was 43.7%. By implication, 56.3% of those in the nation’s primary school today are likely to grow into adulthood as illiterates and this would further compound the problems of an estimated 43% adults that have missed their opportunities of a formal education. It is for these categories of people that the Universal Basic Education (UBE) intends to provide a second chance UBE (2000). For Nigeria to attain the desired 100% national literacy rate soon, it is imperative that provisions should be made and actions taken to universalize basic education enthrone a conducive learning environment and improve quality and standards. The Universal Basic Education (UBE) scheme is designed to address these challenges.

It will be pertinent here to provide a highly succinct meaning of Universal Basic Education and what it constitutes. UBE is an educational reform programme of the Nigerian Government that provides free, compulsory, and continuous 9-year education at two levels: 6 years of primary and 3 years of junior secondary education for all school aged children. There are three components of the UBE programme and these are:

• Early Childhood Care and Development Education (ECCDE)
• 6 years primary Education
• 3 years Junior Secondary School Education (JSS) (UBE, 2005).

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The Universal Primary Education (UPE), which resulted in increased access to basic education between 1960s and 1970s later, suffered huge setback due to lack of proper planning and implementation and the desired political will on the part of the leadership. The U.P.E. scheme failed because the Federal Government of Nigeria underestimated the number of pupils that would benefit from such a programme and could not also determine the number of teachers, school facilities and the amount of money that would be required for training and retraining in order to make the programme functional (Ayeni, 2000).

Before the launching of UBE in 1999, primary school enrolment (education statistics) for 1996 showed that only 14.1 million pupils were registered out of 21 million children of school going age, 14.8 million in 1997 and 15.5 million in 1998 (FME, 2000). What happened therefore to 6.9 million children that were not registered and were not in school? Will they not further compound the illiteracy situation in the country and in addition Nigeria has been facing the problem of recording low National literacy rate of 52%. An adjunct to this is the problem of teacher-pupil ratio which was put at 1:76. This is far from the World Bank ideal ratio of 1:25 (World Bank, 1998).

Closely related to the problems highlighted above is that of low levels of achievement in literacy, numeracy and life skills among pupils. A Federal Government/UNICEF and UNESCO sponsored study (FGN/UNICEF/UNESCO, 1997), which assessed the level of competence of primary four pupils in the three skills revealed very low levels of achievement. The national mean scores for numeracy, literacy and life-skills were 32.2%, 25.2% and 36.86% respectively (UBE, 2005). In the light of the foregoing, the question therefore, is how effective is the implementation of the Universal Basic Education in order to avoid the pitfalls of the past and to ensure that the goals and objectives of the programme are achieved?