World Bank project will take our girls off the streets — Commissioner

Dr Shehu Muhammad, Kaduna State Commissioner for Education says the World Bank-supported Adolescent Girls Initiative and Empowerment (AGILE) project will take girls hawking in the streets back to school.

Muhammad said this in Kaduna on Wednesday at the distribution of 120,552 pairs of free school uniforms to students of public junior and senior secondary schools in the state.

He said that about 80 million dollars would be spent on the project specifically designed to promote enrolment and retention of adolescent girls in schools in the next five years.

According to him, the project is designed to ensure that the girl child between 10 and 20 years is enrolled, retained and supported to complete senior secondary school education.

“This will ensure that all our out-of -school girls and those hawking in the streets are fished out, motivated, encouraged and sent back to school.

“We will present a memo on the AGILE project in the next Executive Council Meeting,’’ he said.

The commissioner further said that efforts to promote girl child education were already yielding desired results, adding that the girls were competing with the boys.

He said that the current annual school census revealed that enrollment for boys and girls stood at 51 per cent boys and 49 per cent girls.

“I am happy that the girls are taking over in the state,’’ he said.

Muhammad added that textbooks and e-books would soon be procured and distributed to schools to improve teaching and learning.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the AGILE Project Coordinator, Mr Habibu Alhassan had said that 90 Junior Secondary Schools, 69 Senior Secondary Schools would be constructed, while 69 others would be renovated under the project.

Alhassan explained that the construction of the new schools and the renovations of existing ones were to create additional learning space and to make available spaces conducive and comfortable for the girl child to learn.