5 States In North West Nigeria To Share N40 Billion International Education Grant

Global Partnership for Education, an international organisation, has donated $100 million (N40 billion) to 12,179 schools in the Northern region of Nigeria.

This was disclosed by the country’s minister of education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, adding that the beneficiaries of the grant are Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Jigawa and Sokoto States.

The gesture, according to Adamu, is part of efforts to enhance quality and standard education in the underdeveloped North.

Adamu stated this on Tuesday, September 6, 2016, in Abuja, during the maiden meeting of the national steering committee of the Nigerian Partnership for Education Project, NIPEP.

The minister said NIPEP was targeted at promoting school effectiveness, ensuring improved learning outcomes, increasing access to basic education for children who were currently out of school particularly girls and strengthening the ability of the managers to plan and manage the system well.

Adamu stated that the project was designed to benefit the girl child at the basic level in public schools, integrated Islamiyya schools and female teachers in the five states in the area of professional teacher-development training.

He disclosed that about 96,954 teacher-development initiatives were in the pipeline to help improve the quality and standard of classroom instruction.

“A total of 12,179 schools are expected to benefit from the school grants while teachers are expected to benefit from about 96,954 teacher-development programme initiatives across the NIPEP states to improve professional knowledge, quality of classroom instruction and teacher assessment skills,” the minister said.

“In addition, 18,421 female teachers are expected to receive scholarships and hopefully become more competent and go on to act as role models for the girl-child. The entire implementation of the project would be at the school level, while the Federal Ministry of Education will ensure effective coordination and monitoring to guarantee smooth and successful execution.”

He, however, expressed concern over the unavailability of accurate and credible data saying, “no meaningful development can take place without this.”