It was a
beginning of a new dawn in 1999 when the then democratically elected Governor
of Ebonyi State of Nigeria,
Dr. Sam. Egwu declared his intention to introduce the free and compulsory
education in Ebonyi
State. This development was
born in his mind because of the state’s backwardness in Education in the
country. Before now, Ebonyi
State was listed in the
country as one of the educationally disadvantaged state in Nigeria.
Thereafter,
the federal government followed suit in the crusade against illiteracy. The
federal government led by General Olusegun Obasanjo in 2003 adopted similar
approach towards revitalizing the education sector. The federal government
introduced Universal Basic Education Policy (UBE) and mandated every state in
the federation to set up state Universal Basic Education Boards to oversee the
smooth implementation of this policy option in education.
Education is
the bedrock of any nation and every individual. Any nation with large number of
educated people is indeed a wealthy nation and any individual who is educated
is an asset to the state and by extension, to the nation. Going by this
development and in line with current trends in global education system which
has assumed super flow dimension, it becomes imperative that Nigeria should
buy the idea of educational development that is globally acceptable and
nationally essential to the peculiarities of the needs of the people.
The policy
witnessed a large turn up of primary and post primary school enrollment and as
such increased the literacy level in the country. The Universal Basic Education
Boards in every states of the federation is working hard towards ensuring that
the policy gets required amount of funds and technical assistance it needs for
optimal performance and effectiveness. The policy requires equally, that each
state should give out counterpart funds in order to access the federal
government subventions of the policy.
Most
importantly, the eradication of illiteracy in the globe is one of the objectives
of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which Nigeria is a co-signatory. The
millennium Development Goals will be evaluated in the year 2015 and every
aspects of the goals will be critically evaluated. This may be one of the
reasons why government both national and states have become restless in the
fight against illiteracy and ignorance.
Governments
have continued to invest heavily in education through budgetary provisions and
grants from donor agencies all over the world. The percentages of national budget
in education are above average when compared with other sectors of national
economy.
In Ebonyi State,
the story is the same. The government has continued to invest heavily in
education of its citizens. Both the past and present administration have been
doing justice to the free and compulsory
education policy. The policy has continued
to receive government subvention to sustain its operationability and
optimality. What remains now is the assessment of the free and compulsory education
in Nigeria
and Ebonyi State in particulars with reference to
the State Universal Basic Education Board
which is the instrument for policy implementation of the programme.
Despite the
huge amount of funds, subventions and grants towards the actualization of
the programme of free Education in
Nigeria and in Ebonyi State in particular, there seem to be pockets of large
number of drop outs and illiterate citizen scattered all over the states of the
federation.
In addition
to this ugly development, some states alleged that they have not accessed the funds for the
implementation of this programme even when they have committed their counterpart funds as it is
required.
Furthermore,
the performances of student of Ebonyi
State secondary schools in
particular and Nigeria
in general in external Examinations like west African Examinations Council
(WAEC), National Examinations Council (NECO) and joint Admission and Matriculation
Board (JAMB) are not encouraging in the last few years.
Consequently,
this has given negative image to the national education globally. This has
equally resulted in the situation where by foreign countries look down on
Nigerian Education’s certification which makes Nigerian students to look
inferior in the country of global studentship.
One wonders
therefore, what could be problems that militate against the smooth and
effective implementation of this policy in our education sector. It is in line
with the foregoing that it becomes imperative for us to conduct a brief research
on the assessment of free education policy in Ebonyi State.
The following research questions will guide us in this
research.
1. What are the challenges that prevent the existing of free?
and compulsory education in Ebonyi state?
2. Why is it that there are still pockets of dropouts of
students in Ebonyi state inspite of the ongoing Free and Compulsory Education in
Ebonyi state?
3. How effective are the measures fix to ensure the
sustainability of the UBE programme in Ebonyi State?
The wides
objectives of this study is to assess the performance of free compulsory
education in Ebonyi
State.
However, the
specific objectives shall be:
1. To identify the challenges that prevents the existing of
free and compulsory education in Ebonyi
State.
2. To ascertain the reasons why there are pockets of school
drop outs in Ebonyi
State inspite of the
ongoing free and compulsory education on Ebonyi State.
3. To evaluate the measures that are fix by the government to
ensure that all Ebonyi children are carried along in the free and compulsory
Education policy.
The hypotheses below shall guide this study.
Ha1: Policy
inconsistency is the major challenge preventing the existence of free and
compulsory education in Ebonyi
State.
Ho1: Policy inconsistency is not the major
challenge preventing the existence of free and compulsory education in Ebonyi State.
Ha2: Inadequate sustainable sensitization and
advocacy of the UBE programme to the people living in the remotest parts of the
Ebonyi State is the reason why there are
pockets of dropouts of students inspite of the ongoing free and compulsory
education in Ebonyi
State.
Ho2: Inadequate sustainable sensitization and
advocacy of the programme to the people living in the remotest parts of the
state is not the reason why there are pockets dropouts students inspite of the
ongoing free and compulsory education in Ebonyi.
Ha3: The
measures fixed by the governments to ensure the sustainability of the programme
in Ebonyi State are effective.
Ho3: The measures fixed by the governments to
ensures the sustainability of the porgramme in Ebonyi State
are not effective.
The research
will help in many ways both to the research and to the education sector in Ebonyi State.
This can be done when the government will adopt some of the recommendations and
findings of this study that will help in sustaining free Education policy in Ebonyi State.
Secondly,
this research serves as a partial fulfillment for the award of post graduate
diploma in public Administration.
Again, it
gives the researcher an ample opportunity to contribute to knowledge.
The study has its scope in Ebonyi State with a particular reference to Ebonyi State
universal education Board to make the study manageable and purposeful.
In very
research, there is bound to be limitations that a researcher will meet. In this
study, the researcher acknowledges that constraints like; uncooperative
attitudes by some respondents, difficulty in accessing data from Ebonyi State Universal basic Education Board and
other challenges that may untold in the
course of this research. However, these limitations will be handled in a manner
that they will not negatively affect the outcome of this study.
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