By Philip Yatai

The Kaduna State Government, through the State Universal Basic Education Board has commenced a three-day training of no fewer than 90 of its social mobilisation officers and critical stakeholders on implementation of School-Based Management Committee (SBMC) – School Improvement Programme (SIP).

The SBMC-SIP is a strategy for school development where a community-initiated self-help project would be implemented by the SBMC with funding support from Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).

The Acting Director, Social Mobilisation of the Board, Malam Aminu Ibrahim, said at the workshop in Kaduna on Friday that UBEC had already approved 2.8 billion naira for the programme.

Ibrahim explained that no fewer than 2,505 communities across the country would be supported under the programme, aimed at promoting grassroots participation, support and towards eventual ownership of basic education by communities.

He also said that the guidelines for accessing, disbursing and utilising UBE intervention fund had so far been revised in favour of SBMC and other result-oriented innovations in basic education delivery.

Ibrahim added that the training was orgainsed to enlighten the relevant government and SBMC officials on the modalities of the implementation of the programme.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that participants at the event included: Head of Department Social Mobilisation Officers at local government levels, SBMCS Desk Officers, Desk Officers, Self-help projects, staff of SUBEB, Ministry of Education and community members.

“We have already carried out state level sensitisation to create the needed awareness about the programme and now we are doing same with our officials and stakeholders at local levels.

“At the end of the training, they will be expected to further enlighten community members in their various local government areas to ensure effective implementation of the programme in the state,” he said.

Ibrahim said that the UBEC SBMC-SIP approach was designed to increase the functionality of the SBMCs as a vehicle for facilitating grassroots advocacy, sensitisation and mobilisation for school development.

“This will improve enrolment and retention of all categories of children in schools. “It is also important to note that the overall success of basic education in Nigeria depends largely on the level of community participation and support,” he said.