The Federal Government and the World Bank have earmarked over $100 million for girl-child education in five northern states, according to an official of the bank, Dr Tunji Adekola.
Speaking at the formal flag off of the project in Sokoto Tuesday, Adekola said the initiative will be implemented under the Nigeria Partnership For Education Project.
He said the benefiting states are Sokoto, Kano, Katsina, Jigawa and Kaduna.
He said that the four-year project is aimed at improving access and quality of basic education, especially for the girl-children in the states.
”The project is also aimed at improving equity in education, as well as ensuring uniformity in access for all. This is to bring back the out- of- school children to schools thereby improving gender parity between boys and girls,” he added.
In his remarks, Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal said the state government has
provided the sum of N75 million as counterpart funding for the project.
Tambuwal, who was represented by his deputy, Ahmed Aliyu, also said that the state government would provide N50 million annually to support other components of the project.
He said said the project would also be used to fully integrate the Quranic schools into the formal education system.
Tambuwal further the state government declared the state of emergency
in the education sector due to the obnoxious state it had been in the
state.
The governor said that the issues of Teacher training and retraining,
teacher-welfare and the schools ‘ feeding programme are among the top
provisions under the state of emergency.
The Minister of Education, Alhaji Adamu Adamu, who was represented by
the National Coordinator of the project, Mr Achebe Joseph, commended
the educational revolution going on in Sokoto state.
Adamu also extolled the wisdom of the state government for declaring
the state of emergency in the education sector.
