By Musa Yaro, Calabar
Cross River State Universal Basic Education Board (CR-SUBEB) says it executed a total of 639 projects between 2015 to 2023.
Briefing newsmen on its scorecard for the period under review on Tuesday, Chairman of Cross River SUBEB, Dr. Stephen Odey, said that a total of 616 projects have been completed and handed over to relevant authorities.
Odey explained that 20, out of 30 projects abandoned by earlier administrations were completed by the present administration when it came on board in 2015.
This, he said has enabled the state to achieve a baseline assessment of 47 percent as against 21 percent in 2015.
“As we step down in a few days, it is good we put in proper perspective what we have been able to achieve to avoid misconceptions, this is the essence of the briefing.
“When we resumed in 2015, there were lots of backlogs of matching grants that the state was unable to access, but the governor, Prof Ben Ayade, provided the needed access through the payment of counterpart funds to enable us to achieve all these feats.
“This is also why Cross River SUBEB by UBEC rating is the highest because we were the first in the country to be able to access the 2022 matching grants, a development which positioned us ahead of other states,” Odey emphasized.
Affirming that his presence on the Board was purely a rescue mission, the chairman announced that his tenure also uncovered over 1500 teachers with fake certificates, after a personnel audit embarked on by the Board.
“When we say we came on a rescue mission, we came on a rescue mission, we have done our part as we were able to uncover over 1500 teachers with fake certificates.
“Some were lured by their friends and colleagues, while some got promotions with these fake certificates ahead of those who legitimately went to school.
“Teachers were calling and thanking me for what I did, a lot of them who were apprehended went back to school and are today, properly groomed. We have written to the governor to grant us approval to reinstate them to the positions they deserve now because they have genuinely gone back to school to upgrade themselves.”
Odey who decried the dearth of teachers also said that the Board successfully employed a total of 2864 teachers through due process.
“Ayade has done us greatly in SUBEB even though we still need more teachers because daily you see the retirement of teachers, and in some schools, you see three or four teachers for primary one to six.”
Other achievements the chairman mentioned were the training and retraining of teachers, education secretaries, and Board Directors, the securing of a Smart School located in the Obudu local government area, as well as the Board’s involvement in the running of three direct secondary schools, which at the moment are offering boarding facilities.
“This is the first time SUBEB is directly running a Junior Secondary School, we came and met some structures constructed by UBEC and abandoned. These structures became moribund and I went to the governor.
“He gave us approval, we recruited staff, and today those three schools located in Abi, Akpabuyo, and Yala local government areas are boarding schools and best in the state, so this is the first time SUBEB is running a direct secondary school which of course, is within our mandate,” Odey explained.
