By Amina Mansur
The World Bank is set to assist Nigerian parents and guardians facing financial challenges to send their children back to school.
Although, the initiative is particularly for Nasarawa State, the government has partnered with the International bank, as out-of-school children in the State keeps increasing.
The State Commissioner for Education, Dr. John Mamman disclosed this at a workshop on “Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment,” which was held in Lafia on Tuesday.
Further more he explained that taking out-of-school children back to the classes had been a top priority of the State Governor, Abdullahi Sule since he was first elected into office in the year 2019, adding that in the coming months, the issue of having uneducated children on the streets during learning hours would be drastically reduced.
Mamman said, “The State Government agreed to partner with the World Bank in two educational sectors; Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment, and the Bilingual Education in order to cater for the out-of-school children in the state.
“The partnership is to see how we can take those children roaming round the streets back to school. And we agreed to run it as Boarding schools because it would be easier for us than as Day schools.”
The Education Commissioner further explained that the AGILE project was in line with the Federal Government’s commitment to promote gender equality and girls’ empowerment by introducing a number of initiatives aimed at taking programmatic actions towards ensuring massive enrollment of the female gender in secondary schools.
Dr. Mamman, who doubles as the State Chairman, Steering Committee for the AGILE project, therefore appealed to all relevant stakeholders in the state to join hands towards tackling the educational challenges confronting the young residents of the state.
While expressing his gratitude to Governor Abdullahi Sule for supporting the project implementation stages which qualified the state to partner with the World Bank, the Commissioner for Education, expressed his gratitude to the governor for approving the sum of N150 million as the state’s counterpart fund for the AGILE project.
“For the Adolescent Girls project and its sub-project activities in Nasarawa state, there is the need for open and inclusive engagement/dialogue with stakeholders affected or likely to be affected by the project and other interested parties throughout the project lifecycle as required by the World Bank.
“All hands have to be on deck to see to the success of the project. This would go a long way in turning around the education sector to meet up with the yearnings and aspirations of the current administration under Governor Abdullahi Sule,” he added.
The Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment is a World Bank’s assisted project aimed at improving the girl-child enrolment in schools.
Also speaking, the state’s project coordinator of AGILE, Aishatu Aliyu-Isoga, noted that the alarming figure of 430,787 out-of-school children in Nasarawa State necessitated the World Bank to partner with the state government in enrolling the children in schools across the state.
According to her, the project in the state is aimed at tackling the barriers to girl-child education and also to improve secondary school education opportunities for the less-privileged adolescent girls in the state.
The Education Commissioner further explained that the AGILE project was in line with the Federal Government’s commitment to promote gender equality and girls’ empowerment by introducing a number of initiatives aimed at taking programmatic actions towards ensuring massive enrollment of the female gender in secondary schools.
Dr. Mamman, who doubles as the State Chairman, Steering Committee for the AGILE project, therefore appealed to all relevant stakeholders in the state to join hands towards tackling the educational challenges confronting the young residents of the state.
However, she hinted that plans had been concluded for the renovation of 690 schools under the schools improvement scheme, adding that 15 new Junior Secondary Schools and 15 new Senior Secondary Schools would be built across the 13 LGAs of the state.
“Therefore, we are urging all the stakeholders in the state to collaborate and show commitment to assist AGILE in achieving its aims and objectives.
“I also want to appeal to parents and guardians to utilise the opportunity of the free education provided to them to educate their adolescent girls and boys so that they can at least, have secondary school education,” she appealed.
