UBEC to conduct NALABE along best practices­­ -Dr Bobboyi

By Maryam Abeeb

The Executive secretary Universal Basic Education Commission UBEC Dr Hamid Bobboyi has concluded plans to conduct an internationally accepted National assessment.

In a statement in Abuja, Head Public Relations/Protocol, David Apeh stated that Executive secretary disclosed this at a 5 day workshop for the development of test items for 2022 National Assessment of Learning Achievement in Basic Education (NALABE) in Nigeria held in Kaduna this week.

He said, UBEC and UNICEF have put everything together for the conduct of an internationally accepted National assessment.

Dr Bobboyi said, the workshop is aimed at achieving the following objectives amongst others i. e to generate the test items in four core subjects in primary 3& 5, js 2, development of assessment framework that will help to come up with the test blueprint that will guide in test items, objectives and content.

The workshop will also produce a development test blueprint and generate test items that will be trial tested for standardization.

The Executive secretary was represented by the deputy Executive secretary Prof Bala Zakari said, since the inception of UBEC, the commission has so far conducted 5 studies, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2011 and 2017 base on its mandate as enshrined in the UBE act of 2004.

National assessment is a survey of schools and learning to provide evidence about learners’ achievement in identified curriculum areas, such as, reading/literacy, mathematics/numeracy, science and other skills, for a clearly defined part of education system.

In his own remarks, the Director quality assurance Mallam Mansir Idris said, the commission in its quest to conduct a national assessment that will be recognized and acceptable by stakeholders Nationally and internationally, identify the need to collaborate and work closely with international agencies like, IEA, UNICEF, FCDO, and other agencies involved in large scale assessment for the development and standardized test items.

He noted, that in September 2021 the commission in collaboration with UNICEF and International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) organized an international workshop on large scale assessment for basic education in Nigeria, where previous assessment exercise in Nigeria were previous assessment exercise were reviewed an area of improvement were identified.

The workshop drew evaluation experts, subject teachers from each of the state of federation and some UBEC staff among others.