On Friday, 25th May, 2018, Non-Governmental Organisations like Connected Development (CODE), BudgIT, and other activists took to twitter for an online campaign. The campaign according to the conveners was to call for the amendment of the UBE act to capture the senior secondary education which will extend the UBE from nine to twelve years. The tweet chat with the hashtag #AmendUBEAct was the number one trending event on Twitter last week Friday.

Tweeting through their various official twitter handles, the participating NGOs and individuals harp its advocacy for 12years of free education not because it will only be beneficial to the child but that it will contribute to socioeconomic development of the country. This will also help to address the state of poverty in the war torn North East region as parents will be free from the economic burden of sending their children to school while it will also address the low enrollment of the girl child in the Northern part of the nation which we’ve failed to address as a nation.

However like other participants in the online campaign CODE said its advocacy is not just for twelve years of quality education but also provision of quality and well trained teachers.

BudgIT believes that primary education is not sufficient to equip the country’s growing youth population with the skills needed to meet the demands of a modern economy as a result the UBE act needs to be amended to accommodate Nigerian girls, 53% of whom are not in school at senior secondary level compared to 37% of boys which means just over 36% which is a third of girls will actually complete secondary Education.

The UBE Act amendment among other importance will help to increase the enrollment of children in schools and address the increasing out of school Children in Nigeria. The National Assembly is advised to conclude this amendment to save the nations education sector.