Bauchi State Governor, Sen Bala Mohammed Abdulkadir, has approved a total of 20,250 girls to benefit from the Girls Scholarship Programme (GSP) of the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment ( AGILE) in the first phase.
The disclosure was made by the Project Coordinator of AGILE, Ali Usman Gar, during a stakeholders meeting on AGILE GSP held at the Conference Hall of the Bauchi LGA Secretariat on Thursday.
He added that the Governor has also approved that another 40,000 girls will be chosen to benefit in the second phase, just as another 50,000 girls have been proposed to benefit in the third and final phase of the implementation of the project.
He, however, stated that the problem now is that after the approval by the Governor for the number of beneficiaries of the programme, the beneficiaries are yet to be identified, disclosing that so far, only 11,000 girls have been identified and registered.
According to him, “That is the essence of this stakeholders meeting, we want you to tell us how to get the girls that will be registered for the programme. The government is ready to fully implement the AGILE project.”
Ali Usman Gar explained that, “It was approved that a certain amount of money be given to them under the Girls Scholarship Programme (GSP), which is a scheme by the state government to reduce the negative effects of poverty and allow parents to send their girls to school.”Best online courses
He further explained that, “AGILE is a project; I am sure many of you here must have heard a lot about it on the radio, TV stations, and social media. But one thing is that it is a project that is aimed at improving the education sector of our dear state, Bauchi.”
According to him, “The reason for today’s meeting is to explain to you the aims and objectives of the project before we elaborate on the Girls Scholarship Programme (GSP).”
The AGILE PC stressed that, “This Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) Project is one project by the Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Education in collaboration with the state government with funding by the World Bank.”
“It aimed at seeing what ways to use in mitigating the lingering problems of education, especially that of the girl-child. But the project will not only dwell on girl-child education, it will take care of boys too, but the worst hit is the girl-child,” he added.
He stressed that, “The problem is the out-of-school children syndrome and school dropouts, those are the two major factors that the project is focusing on.”Best online courses
He explained that, “Out-of-school refers to the situation of the school-aged children who are not completely in school while dropout refers to those children who started but stopped along the way. This situation has led to several researches to uncover the reason why these children are either not in school or dropped out.”
According to him, “A few reasons were discovered to be responsible for the situation. It was discovered that most of the school structures are dilapidated while in some cases, the schools are far away from the children, forcing them to skip attending schools which will eventually lead to dropping out.”
He added that, “It was further discovered that poverty has eaten deep into the society to the extent that parents cannot take care of their children, not to talk of sponsoring them to schools. Some of them have 10 or more children, thereby making it pretty difficult for them to buy school needs.”
Ali Usman Gar added that, “After the research, the Federal Government encouraged states that identified such problems, and, in Nigeria, the northern region is the most hit with the issue of out-of-school and dropout children. In northern Nigeria, Bauchi is the leading state in the out-of-school children syndrome based on the available data provided by UNICEF.”
According to him, “You will recall that since the data was released, the State Governor, Sen Bala Mohammed Abdulkadir has not rested on his oars, held a series of meetings and stakeholders engagements to fathom how to get Bauchi State out of the situation.”
He disclosed that, “There were measures put in place by the World Bank on how to implement the project in terms of counterpart funding, a commitment fund that shows the readiness of the state to be part of the project, Bauchi did not hesitate to pay the counterpart funds, in fact, it was one of the first states to do that.”
“The World Bank in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education immediately approved that Bauchi State qualified to take part in the project and the process of implementing it started immediately,” he added.
According to him, “In the process of implementing the project, three strategies were adopted, including the approval by the Governor that all Junior and Senior Secondary Schools in the state be renovated, and based on our work plan, 1003 schools have been identified for complete renovation.”
He added that, “Plans have been concluded to commence the renovation exercise, members of SBMC that are here will confirm that, on those children who are far away from schools, the Governor has approved the construction of 43 additional new schools.”
He explained that, “These new schools comprise 21 Basic Schools and 21 Senior Schools across the state. I am glad to inform you that Bauchi LGA has the highest number of the new schools.”
He added that, “The next is that after renovation and construction of the schools, what happens to those poverty-stricken parents who cannot afford to send their children to the schools, the Governor approved that, having discovered the level of poverty, it affected girls mostly.”
