Under the Girls' Education Project, GEP 3 intervention carried out by the United Nations Children Fund, UNICEF with money from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, FCDO, more than a million out-of-school children in Kano State have been sent back to school.
Hajia Hauwa Tanimu, Deputy Director, Junior Secondary Schools, Kano State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB, revealed this weekend during a meeting for stakeholders, including the School Based Management Committee, SBMC, High Level Women Advocate, HILWA, and mothers associations, on the sustainability plan of the project as GEP 3 phasing out by September ending. The meeting was organised by UNICEF in collaboration with SUBEB.
The students from the six Local Government Areas, or LGAs, of Nasarawa, Sumaila, Dambatta, Ungogo, Kano Municipal, and Gwale in Kano State, where the scheme was trialled, have reportedly returned to school, according to Hajia Tanimu.
She said that the GEP 3 project had been successful in altering perceptions of the danger posed by out-of-school youth, necessitating the establishment of sustainability measures to enable the benefited communities to maintain the interventions.
She said “UNICEF under the GEP 3 has carried out series of interventions which include the enrolment drive. With this intervention, about one million adolescent children have been enrolled back to school (Primary and Integrated Quranic School/Tsangaya).
“Other interventions include enrolment drive, cash transfer program to return girl child back to school, school grants, training of the teachers and other supports to SBMC and others.