by Aisha Ahmed
The Kano Government is to sustain the gains of the Girls Education Project (GEP III) to enhance the enrollment drive for girls and improve learning outcomes for them.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NANB) reports that the UNICEF is an initiative designed to enhance the enrollment drive for girls, improve learning outcomes for girls and strengthen government’s policy making for continued support to girl child education.
The Chairman of the School-Based Management Committee (SBMC), Malam, Tijjani Baraya, made this known in an interview with NAN in Kano.”We succeeded in mobilising parents across the 44 local governments to monitor the academic performances of girls in schools.“Our partners conducted training and built our capacity and strengthened experience sharing amongst the project implemented states to share experiences and ideas on sustaining the project.”We owe the state, a responsibility of sustaining the project for our collective benefit, even if there is no fund from sources to sustain it,” he said.
Also speaking, a member of the Mothers’ Association set up by the project, Mrs Ikilima Uwais, said the project has changed parent’s mind set as rural women, towards girls’ education.“They mobilised us and gave us training and were told that we have a stake in our girls’ education for our development and benefit,” she said.Another member of the mothers’ association in Sumaila local government area of Kano, Mrs Amina Adamu, said the project was an eye opener for her.“When we were mobilised to set up the association in our area, many women in the community were envious of us.“
The project trained us on the need to sustain the project to a certain level before marrying our girls off,’ she said.Also speaking, some of the students who took part in the project, revealed their life changing experiences.Fpr Maimuna Shu’aibu, a student of SS III at the Aisami Girls Secondary school in Dala area of Kano, said the project boosted her self-confidence.“We were trained to identify our position in the society as girls, trained on sanitary hygiene and keeping ourselves clean at all times.”
The Girls for Girls (G4G) training she said, was conducted by female teachers in their schools, who received technical training from experts to improve knowledge sharing.Ummaaimana Abubakar, a student of the Tangaza Secondary school, Kano lauded the project, saying that the G4G was an eye opener for her and other girls.“Our schoolmates who are not part of the training were always envying us because we were trained on etiquette and self confidence,” Abubakar said.She promised to share her newly acquired skills with other girls in her community.NAN reports that the project which began in 2012, is being implemented in Bauchi, Kano, Katsina, Niger, Sokoto and Zamfara.
The GEP III is supported by the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO, of the UK.
The project was implemented in 300 girls schools in six local government areas in Kano.
NAN reports that Gov, Abdullahi Ganduje on Monday said the state government recorded increased school enrollment of 3,973,957,02 pupils of which 2,509 of the figure in the 2019/2020 annual school census were girls, indicating 96 per cent increase on Girl Child enrolment in the state.
Also, in the 2018/2019 annual census, he said the enrolment of Primary school pupils stood at 3, 807,580 pupils, of which 1,978.888 were girls. (NAN)
