THE National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) has completed the harmonisation of National Certificate of Education (NCE) Minimum Academic Standards with the nine-year basic education curriculum.

Mallam Sulaiman Garba, the commission's spokesman, made this known in an inteview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday in Abuja .

Garba pointed out that the NCE Minimum Academic Standards were used by colleges of education for the training of NCE teachers.

He noted that with the harmonisation, NCE teachers would now be in a better position to appreciate the subjects of the nine-year basic education curriculum.

"The harmonisation becomes imperative because the current NCE curriculum is inadequate for the implementation of the new nine-year Universal Basic Education programme," he said.

He said that the initiative was carried out by education experts drawn from universities, the NUT, NERDC and consultants, as well as civil society groups and development partners.

"The harmonisation exercise was to make the NCE minimum standards flexible and responsive to the UBE curriculum and also make them to respond to the graduate needs of the UBE programme.

"The objective is also to produce effective NCE teachers for all the four components of the UBE programme, which include early Childhood, Primary, Junior Secondary and Adult and Non-Formal Education," he stressed, Garba said that with the development, the core elements of the nine-year UBE curriculum had been fused into the minimum standards of NCE.