The Federal Government has vowed to crack-down on substandard school building construction in order to forestall collapse in the country.
Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission(UBEC), Dr. Hamid Bobboyi disclosed this on Monday, during the training of staff of the Commission’s Department of Physical Plan planning, on enhancing quality delivery of projects using simple tools for on-the-spot assessment at projects sites
The training was organised in collaboration with the Nigeria Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI) and a private firm, Tectonics Engineering Group, and held at UBEC Digital Resource Centre, Abuja.
Bobboyi urged stakeholders, including the State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs), to ensure quality in the delivery of school building projects.
He noted that the Commission would no longer condone shoddy execution of projects and warned contractors about the risks of delivering substandard school infrastructure in the country.
The UBEC boss restated the commitment of the Commission working with SUBEBs to improve the quality of educational structures in order to ensure a safe and conducive learning environment for Nigerian children.
He also disclosed that the Commission would deploy monitors who would frequently go to find out what is going on across the construction sites.
He maintained that educational infrastructures are sensitive projects that must be handled with the ultimate sense of responsibility so as not to risk the lives of children and staff of the institutions.
Bobboyi insisted that funds might not be enough, but the little that is available must be used judiciously to ensure the delivery of solid projects all over the country.
He regretted the recent incident of school building collapse in Jos, even though not a building sponsored by UBEC, urging state governments to take proactive steps to ensure that contractors handling school building projects adhere strictly to specifications.
“We are dealing with very strategic sectors, children who are between the ages of 5,6 up to about 12 that are very vulnerable in any building collapse. We saw that when it happened in Jos.
“It is our responsibility to ensure that we take all necessary steps to build school infrastructures that are solid and can stand the test of time,” he stated.
According to him, for quite some time, the Commission has had an elaborate monitoring system as far as construction of educational infrastructure or school infrastructure is concerned.
He also said the Commission is working with NBRRI through its Chief Executive, Prof. Samson Duna has been working with Council for Registration of Engineers in Nigeria (COREN) for a few years to make sure that they are part of the monitoring teams at the state level.
“And it’s our hope that with our partners, NBRRI and other stakeholders, as well as the State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs), because the primary responsibility lies with them in our effort to achieve good outcomes as far as these projects are concerned,”he said.
Also speaking, the Director-General/CEO, NBRRI, Professor Samson Duna, said the training programme was a proactive step by UBEC to forestall the incidence of rampant building collapse in Nigeria, especially school buildings.
He explained that the participants who UBEC technical staff would as teams be visiting the sites with tools to ascertain if the contractor is using the right steel and concrete for building construction.
“So I’m now throwing a warning to contractors involved in taking contracts in constructing schools without following the required specification. They should sit up,” he said.