EU launches scheme on out-of-school children in northern Nigerian states

The European Union (EU) has launched an educational intervention programme targeting out-of-school children in Kano, Jigawa and Sokoto states.

The programme, to be implemented by Save the Children, Plan International and DAG, is aimed at emancipating the poorest, underserved anaqd most marginalised population groups.

At the flagging off of the programme on Wednesday in Jigawa, the Consortium Team Lead, Tobi Ransomed, said the intervention targets women, girls, youth and nomads for quality, inclusive gender and conflict-sensitive education.

Mrs Tobi said the three-year programme selected three local government areas in each of the states and will start by identifying the learning facilitators and learning centres through the State Universal Basic Education (SUBEB) and Nomadic Board.

She said the programme will increase access to safe, quality, and inclusive alternative/accelerated education programmes for 324,000 young girls and boys and 32,400 persons with disabilities, and support their transition into formal or non-formal education.

Mrs Tobi added that the project plans to increase access to livelihood opportunities, vocational education and green jobs opportunities for 60,000 youth and 6,000 PWDs and advocate for and strengthen the capacities of education and community stakeholders on peaceful coexistence, safe schools and girls’ empowerment.

“The enrollment campaign and drive is the most important part (of the project) and is for us to have children that are out of school coming back to school”, Mrs Tobi stated.

The state’s governor, Umar Namadi, said the intervention aligned with his administration’s focus on addressing the number of school children out of school.

He was represented at the event by his deputy, Aminu Usman.

Also, the state team lead for Jigawa, Stephen Sawa, said the Save the Children, Jigawa was found worthy to participate in the intervention because it is donors-friendly.

Mr Sawa said out-of-school children is a global challenge of which Nigeria is at the forefront, having 10 per cent of the children globally, according to UNESCO.

Mr Sawa said the number of the children in the country is huge and Jigawa has over 700,000 of them.

“The number is disturbing and organisations like Save the children is keying in to ensure that this children attain a very normal life from their childhood age to adolescence,” he added.

“If we fail to create an opportunity for the children, it’s going to become detrimental to the development of the country. Over the years, this has not been good with us and efforts are being made to put in place measures to make sure this things work”, Mr Sawa stated.

He said the programme will give the children the opportunity to attain literacy, basic numeracy skills and knowledge about history about their country.

Mr Sawa said aside the literacy component, the programme also looks at skills acquisition, which is another thing to make the children employable or become employer of labour, saying that is what education is all about.

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“A person who has acquired education has the chance of increasing his livelihood by 10 per cent.

“The programme aims to make the population a productive one, at the end we want to see that the number of out-of-school children is reduced, the high level of poverty is reduced and make Nigeria a productive nation”, Mr Sawa said.