A non-governmental organisation, Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (SCACEFA), has urged Kaduna citizens to sustain accountability in government schools projects in the state.
The policy adviser of the coalition, Mr Nathaniel Adamu, gave the advice at a stakeholders’ project meeting Wednesday in Kaduna.
The theme of the project was “Increasing community voices to demand for accountability”.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that SCACEFA was funded by MacArtur Foundation and supported by the Kaduna State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB)
NAN also reports that SCACEFA trained over 50 civil society organisations and School Based Management Committees (SBMC) to demand for accountability on basic education in Lere, Jaba and Kaduna North local government areas of the state.
Adamu attributed the poor maintenance culture and lack of demand for accountability and monitoring of government spending on projects in public schools to the poor outcome of learning.
He also attributed the poor learning outcomes of children in schools to the quality of teachers, adding that the quality of teachers especially at the basic level of education needed attention.
While giving the overview of organisation’s accomplishments, Adamu said that the organisation had the mission of facilitating opportunities for children, the youth and women to access basic necessities for growth and development through education, service provision and self-actualisation.
He pointed out that the meeting was to demonstrate how communities could leverage on existing and ongoing building of structures to report issues with verifiable evidence.
He said that communities can achieve the purpose by asking the right questions and reporting any foul being noticed at any point in erecting structures and furniture supplies by contractors at their various localities.
“We have built the capacity of the SBMCs and now they know their rights and how to demand accountability from the government, they should also commence training other localities that have not been opportune to benefit from the training.
Adamu said that the citizens could provide security and community assistant projects to sustain education in their localities in occurrences such as flood and other unforeseen circumstances.
“Philanthropies and old boys association of the Community schools should also assist in making sure that school environments in their localities are favorable for learning, it takes time for government to address those kinds of issues.
“The SBMCs should also have school improvement plans and actualise them so that the government can see it and complement on their efforts, educating our children is not only the government responsibility, we have to join hands”, Adamu said.
Adamu called on the government to engage in need assessment before carrying out any project in communities and also urged the communities to handle with care government projects as it is meant for their benefit.
He also called on contractors and community heads to desist from corruption of any kind which may compromise the standards of projects in our schools.
