The Federal Government has vowed to crack-down on substandard school building construction across the country, urging stakeholders including the State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs) to ensure quality in the delivery of school building projects.
Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr. Hamid Bobboyi disclosed this on Monday, August 12, 2024 during the training of staff of the Commission’s Department Of Physical Planning on Enhancing Quality Delivery of Projects Using Simple Tools For On-the-spot Assessment At Projects Sites, held in Abuja.
The training was organised in collaboration with the Nigeria Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI), and a private firm, Tectonics Engineering Group.
Bobboyi who noted that the Commission would no longer condone shoddy execution of projects, warned contractors about the risk of delivering substandard school infrastructure in the country.
He 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 were 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.
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 a very strategic sector, 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 was concerned.
He also said the Commission was working with NBRRI through its Chief Executive, Prof. Samson Duna and the 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.
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, UBEC technical staff would as teams visit the sites with tools to ascertain if the contractor was using the right steel and concrete for building construction.
He reiterated commitment to ensuring that the quality of concrete meets the specification, noting that it had established tools that measure the concrete in its wet state and also when it is hardened.
