By Uchino Amatey
Following the Federal Government’s Commitment to encourage Communities to take ownership of schools through the introduction of School based management Committee - school improvement programme (SBMC-SIP). The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) in collaboration with Cross River State Universal Basic Education Board (CR-SUBEB) have embarked on a monitoring exercise for all SBMC-SIP projects in the State.
The Director of Quality Assurance CR-SUBEB, Mr Fransis Asaru, said the exercise was necessitated by the need to ascertain the level of work done and ensure that benefitting communities put government funds to good use.
Mr. Asaru said the SBMC-SIP allows communities with functional School Based Management Committees to access government funds to implement projects under three categories of Micro, Macro and special projects through provision of counterpart funds.
According to him, the counterpart fund generated by communities do not have to be monetary but communities can also access funds by providing working materials or artisans to assists in such projects.
Commending SBMCs for their dedication, the Principal Information Officer, UBEC, Mrs Tahoma Clifford, said she was impressed with the levels at which Communities are committed to the improvement of basic education,adding that all the projects visited had representatives to respond to questions asked, which shows how involved SBMCs are in the execution of projects.
She however advised the Board to increase monitoring of SBMC-SIP projects in other to ensure that SBMCs are not executing projects that outweighs funds provided and projects are completed within timelines.
The SBMC-SIP is different from the UBE intervention funds which have to do with counterpart fund at the State level.
At the SBMC-SIP level, funds are sent directly to benefitting Communities through the SBMCs.
SBMC-SIP was introduced by the federal government to encourage communities to take ownership of schools in other to curb vandalism, truancy and to support government efforts for quality education.
SBMCs access funds at three different levels; Micro, Macro and Special Projects. Micro projects allow communities to apply for up to two hundred and fifty thousand naira for a counterpart fund of twenty-five thousand naira.
For the macro project, communities can access up to two million naira, by generating a counterpart fund of two hundred thousand naira.
The special cases for the whole state are limited to a maximum of two or three schools benefiting from that and it allows them apply for five to seven million naira. They need to be able to produce between five hundred to seven hundred thousand naira in counterpart fund.
Some of the SBMC-SIP projects include; Procurement of 5-sets of Teachers Furniture and 15 pupils desk each at Army Children School, Ikot Ansa, Government Primary school. Ekpiri-Iko, PCN primary school, Akpet Central, Community Primary school, Obum/Etana, PCN primary school, Etono II.
Some others include; Renovation of Head teacher’s office and store at Government Primary School, Abenyo, Calabar Municipality, Renovation of toilet at Army Primary School II, Akim, construction of borehole fence at Mayne Avenue, Repairs of raft and leaking roof at Government Technical College, Biakpan, Renovation of 3-classroom block at PCN primary school, Ikun, Biase Local Government Area.
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