The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has organised special training for its staff members, to address recurrent cases of school building collapse in the country.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the training held at UBEC Digital Resource Centre, Abuja on Monday, has in attendance the Commission’s members of staff from the Department of Planning, across the six geo-political zones of the country
The training which sensitised participants to the risks of delivering substandard school infrastructure focussed on enhancing quality delivery of projects using simple tools and on-the-spot assessment at project sites.
It was organised by UBEC in collaboration with the Nigeria Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI), and a private firm, Tectonics Engineering Group.
Speaking during the training, the Director-General, NBRRI, Prof. Samson Duna stressed the importance of identifying substandard materials in building construction.
According to him, the use of substandard building materials is the primary cause of building collapse in the country.
Duna explained that research had shown that some industry players compromised on quality which had resulted in the cases of building collapse, loss of lives and resources.
He stressed the need to equip participants with the requisite knowledge to identify substandard materials and guide against the menace.
”The training has to do with quality assurance of construction materials. These days, we have experienced rampant building collapses caused mostly by man made errors.
” It is something that can be minimised and avoided. When a building collapses, investment is lost, projects are abandoned. The training is a preemptive measures to be taken by UBEC,” he said.
The NBRRI boss urged the participants to take the training seriously and deploy their knowledge in efficient monitoring of UBEC projects across the country.
“Part of UBEC mandate is to ensure the creation if conducive environment for our children to learn in school and by so doing provide resources in constructing schools in partnership with SUBEB.
“So, the idea is for them to ensure that the design is proper and the design on paper is implemented and meet up with standard.
“Doing this will come with practical approach by visiting the construction sites with tools to ascertain if the contractor is using the right tool or the other,” he said.
Executive Secretary of UBEC, Dr Hamid Bobboyi, vowed to crack-down on substandard school building construction across the country.
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 against the risks of delivering substandard school infrastructure in the country.
The executive secretary said, in providing a conducive learning environment for the children, it was paramount to ensure that educational infrastructure was of good quality and could stand the test of time.
Bobboyi also disclosed that the Commission would deploy monitors who will frequently go out, to find out what was going on across the construction sites.
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.
Boboyi stated that with the training, the monitors would be able to ensure that contractors worked according to specification.
“UBEC has had an elaborate monitoring system as far as construction of education infrastructure is concerned.
“We also have good relationship with NBRRI, and have been working with COREN for few years to make sure they are part of monitoring team that we have at the state level,” he said.
Boboyi promised to sustain collaboration with NBRRI, COREN and other regulatory agencies to nip the challenge of building collapse in the bud (NAN)