Funmi Lawrence
Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States are to benefit from the 20million US dollars grant to improve inequalities in access and quality learning with a focus on foundational and transferable skills and governance.
The Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu at the launch of the implementation of the Global Partnership on Education (GPE) in Abuja on Tuesday said the grant would focus on strategic actions that are catalytic in improving the education architecture in the three focal states.
Adamu noted that the fund would be applied to selected interventions that would mitigate the challenges and respond to urgent educational needs in emerging from protracted crisis in the North East region.
” Across the three states, the grant will reduce the number of out-of-school children, establish robust teacher preparation, professional development and recruitment systems, address protection issues and strengthen leadership capacity for education in emergency.
” Each activity will include consideration for children within the poorest wealth quintiles to reduce inequalities due to poverty and displacement resulting from violent conflict.
” The overall targeted outcome of this joint partnership is to improve access to education through formal and non-formal approaches, improve learning outcomes and the continuity of learning for conflict-affected children in safe, healthy and protective environments in North-East.”
The minister explained that a total of 200,000 conflict-affected children, including those with special needs will be provided with critical life skills and psycho-social support.
He added that 28,000 teachers would be supported to acquire requisite teaching qualifications while another 58,000 teachers would undergo different levels of professional development specifically tailored to meeting their individual current and future needs.
Adamu further said that the ministry would work closely with the states to coordinate and monitor the implementation while ensuring proper recording of information and data.
He said that each state would be required to appoint a designated officer who would send regular reports to the ministry for proper transparency and accountability.
Earlier, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr Sonny Echono, said the ministry had decided to utilise the fund
in the three North-East states as they were the most affected by insurgency.
Echono said it was important to revive the educational sector of these stated as many education facilities had
been destroyed and children displaced from their homes.
“The aim of the GPE Accelerated Funding Grant is to reduce the number of
out-of-school children.
” This fund will also assist in what the government is doing
to ensure that education continues even in conflict situations.
