By Favour Nnabugwu

The Federal Government   has disclosed that states that have denied teachers the required training for which the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, apportioned funds annually, would not get the 2012 funds.

Minister of State for Education, Barr Nyesom Wike stated this during reports presentation on some major activities of the commission to the Ministry in Abuja.

Stating that there was no point funding states that have not utilised the previous funds given to them, Wike said the government will only fund states that have properly utilised funds apportioned to them from the N5.5b available to the Commission.

“There is no point giving money to states for the crucial purpose of training their teachers and they don’t do so. States that have not trained their teachers with the 2011 UBEC funds will not get the 2012 funds.

“I was told that UBEC would organise facilitators to train teachers across the country but I felt it’s better to give the money for teachers’ capacity development to the states for them to facilitate such.

“We tried to monitor states that are carrying out capacity development for teachers because funds were released to the states between August and September last year. Some states have done the training; others are still in the process while some others have not started.”

Reiterating that teachers’ professional development is very important, Wike stated that government is concerned that about 80 per cent of teachers in the basic education sector are unqualified and is doing everything possible to correct this.

Speaking earlier, UBEC’s Director-General, Dr. Ahmed Modibbo, said the commission had evaluated the performance of states with regard to the funds given them and discovered that some states didn’t perform well.

Modibbo revealed that 124,061 teachers and education managers have so far benefited from 2011 Teachers’ Professional Development training conducted across the country in collaboration with States Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs).