Management of Universal Basic Education Scheme (U.B.E.) for Qualitative Education in Nigeria.

In realization of the role which education plays in national development, the government of Nigeria has ventured into various educational policies and programmes with the great expectation that, the felt socio-economic and political needs of the citizenry would be met. For instance, the Universal Primary Education (UPE) was introduced nation-wide by the federal government of Nigerian in September 1976, with the major intention of taking care of the educational demands of Nigerians. Fafunwa (1986) remarked that a decade after the introduction of the UPE the educational outcomes showed that the national educational objectives were not fully realized due to certain national problems such as financial problems, insufficient competent teachers, over crowded classrooms, narrow curriculum content and high rate of drop-outs. In responses to the agitation for a more functional and qualitative educational systems a new educational system known as the 6-3-3-4 was introduced nation--wide in 1982 by the federal government of Nigeria. The educational system stressed the point that a child shall spend six years in primary school, three years in Junior Secondary School, another three years in Senior Secondary and four years in a tertiary institution. After a decade of the introduction of the 6-3-3-4 system of education, it was observed by educational analysts that there has been general lack of consistency in Nigerian's educational policies, the system and national objectives. This presupposes that the educational objectives of the 6-3-3-4 system of education have not been fully realized partly because of the inherent problems of the U.P.E which were not effectively tackled before the commencement of the new educational system. Furthermore, poor implementation strategy led to the non-attainment of the national objectives of the 6-3-3-4 system of education. This further led to the agitations for a more functional educational system that is very much relevant to the socio economic, political and cultural backgrounds of Nigerian. Therefore, as a positive reaction to the earnings of Nigerian the federal government under the leadership of President Olusegun Obasanjo introduced the Universal Basic Education (U.B.E) in 1999. Although the educational programme has commenced nation wide, there is a need to ask this question. Has the inherent problems which militated against the effective implementation and the attainment of the desired objectives of U.P.E and 6-3-3-4 systems of education been tackled to create favourable conditions for the implementation of the objectives of U.B.E? To provide an answer to this question, the paper discusses the management of UBE scheme for qualitative education in Nigeria. The concept of management as used in the context of this paper has been viewed as intelligent utilization of human, capital and material recourses directed towards the achievement of pre-determined objectives. This presupposes that resources available to a given organization should be prudently used for the purpose of goal attainment. Similarly, qualitative education can be viewed as specific standard of education attainable against the backdrop of the existing international standard. From another dimension Fafunwa (1986) viewed qualitative education as functional in nature and could empower the recipients to be useful members of the society through acquisition of certain basic skill, abilities, and competences. This means that education needs to be qualitative for the recipients in order to empower the recipients socially, economically, politically and scientifically. Universal Basic Education Programme and Objectives The introduction of the U.B .E is Nigeria's positive reaction to the Jontein Declaration of Education for all by the year 2000, and it also signifies its commitment to the total eradication of illiteracy. It sees education in its broadest sense of a close articulation of the formal, non formal and informal approaches as an instrument for the awakening and all--round development of the human potential. …