By Ademola Orunbon
The Executive Chairman of Ogun State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Dr. Femi Majekodunmi, has clarified that the ongoing National Personnel Audit (NPA) programme for public and private basic schools otherwise called ‘School Census’ is not about taxation or financial audit, but rather to have the total number of teachers, students, infrastructures in all primary and junior secondary schools in the State, to obtain useful information for planning purposes.
The NPA programme is a collaborative exercise by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and SUBEB, which commenced on Sunday, May 29,2022 and will end on Friday, July 1, 2022.
Dr. Majekodunmi made this known during the monitoring exercise of the audit in some schools in Yewa South and Obafemi Owode Local Government Areas, stating that the focus of the programme was to address inadequacy in data gathering for effective planning and implementation in the education sector.
“The personnel audit will help obtain comprehensive and reliable data of children of school age enrolled in basic and junior secondary schools, to enable the government have a data bank of pupils, students and personnel of public and private basic schools in the State”, he said.
The SUBEB boss, in a statement made available by the SUBEB’s Information Officer, Mr. Tolulope Ogunjimi, appealed to private school owners to cooperate with the education officers assigned to carry out the audit, to provide firsthand information on categories of people in school, and ascertain the challenges with qualified and unqualified teachers.
Dr. Majekodunmi charged officers on the field to be hardworking so that all schools involved would be captured in the State, noting that necessary attention should be given to proper data gathering.
Responding, the Acting Team Leader 2022 NPA from UBEC, Malam Abubakar Sahabo, said the purpose of the audit was to have the total number of teachers, students, and infrastructures in all basic and junior secondary schools in the State to enable the government to plan adequately for them. In their remarks, the Head Teacher, St. Joseph Catholic Church School, Ilaro, and the Proprietress of ASSLAW Private School, Kajola, Mr. Adekunle Babatunde and Mrs. Aminat Abayomi respectively, pledged to support the government in the successful implementation of the audit.
