Out-of-school children: FG gets N265bn to tackle problem

Fred Ezeh, Abuja

Federal Government, on Monday, confirmed that the effort to reduce the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria has received a financial boost of N265 billion from the World Bank and Global Partnership for Education (GPE).

It explained that N220 billion has been secured from the World Bank under the umbrella of Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA), while there is ongoing process to secure additional N45 billion grant from the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) to help tackle the problem of out-of-school children.

Currently, there are over 10 million out-of-school children in Nigeria and larger percentage of them are in northern Nigeria.

Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, who disclosed the information in Abuja, on Monday, while delivering a keynote address at event to mark the 2020 Commonwealth Day, said that beyond the financing, his Ministry has designed and will soon begin the implementation of a special project known as the “Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE).

He explained: “AGILE is a five-year project targeted at out-of-school girls between the ages of 10 and 20 at secondary school level. It’s a project that would provide them with vocational skills and other empowerment needed for 21st century relevance.”

The Minister, however, appreciated the contributions made so far by the Commonwealth member countries, particularly, in the area of education and human capital development.

He said: “Commonwealth scholarship scheme has been particularly instrumental to building linkages and integrating member nations. At present, more than 2, 000 Nigerians have benefitted from the scholarship since inception, with average of 12-18 beneficiary scholars every year.

“Aside the Commonwealth scholarship, Federal Ministry of Education also coordinates other bilateral scholarship schemes in which there are, at least, 450 beneficiary scholars at the moment, in addition to over 2, 000 scholarship positions in various tertiary institutions in Nigeria.”