EXTENT OF IMPLEMENTATION OF UNIVERSAL BASIC EDUCATION PROGRAMME IN SOUTH-EAST NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigated the Extent of Implementation of Universal Basic Education programme in South East, Nigeria. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The study adoped descriptive survey design. The population of the study comprised of 5,453 primary school head teachers and 1,288 junior secondary school principals, making the total population to be
6,741. While the sample of the study comprised of 1,348 respondents. Instrument for data collection was structured Questionnaire tagged: Assessment of the Implementation of Universal Basic Education Questionnaire (AIUBEQ). The instrument was validated by two experts in Educational Administration and Planning and one Expert from Measurement and Evaluation. Statistical mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while t-test was used to test hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed that: the extent to which free universal basic education programme have been achieved in south east is to a low extent and the extent to which the need of drop-out of basic school children have been catered for in South East is also to low extent. The hypothesis revealed that there is significant difference between the mean rating of male and female teachers on the extent to which the needs of young people who had their basic education interrupted been catered for in South East. Based on the findings the study recommended that teachers should be provided with adequate material resources, trained and re-trained, exposed to new innovates in other to influence students interest in their education pursuit and enhance performance by so doing reducing the incidence of school dropout in south east to a great extent.