…10,000 Girls Set to Benefit from Scholarship Annually
By Adamu Abubakar Kumo and Saeed Ahmad Bappah
Towards addressing the problem of out-of-school children to improve girl-child education, the Gombe State Government under Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya is mopping up 8,000 out-of-school girls every year through the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) Project.
This was made known by the State Project Coordinator for AGILE, Dr Amina Haruna Abdul while interacting with newsmen in her office.
The Coordinator commended Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya for his foresight in bringing the project to Gombe State and for the support he has being providing towards the successful implementation of the project.
The Coordinator said the governor’s commitment reflects his passion of providing quality education for the people of Gombe State at all levels, especially the girl-child.
She highlighted that the focus of the project is to educated and improve the capacity of adolescent girls towards making them active members of the society. “If we educate the girl child, we obviously laid the foundation for a better society”, she remarked.
Confronting the menace of out-of-school children head-on, Dr Amina said the project, in collaboration with the adult and non -formal education sector targets to mop out thousands of out-of-school children to enhance their participation in the development process of the society.
However, realising the fact that poverty is a factor hindering some girls from attending schools, the project plans to give scholarship to the poor and vulnerable.
“We target to enroll 10,000 girls for the first year. Subsequently, we are going to upscale every year until the five years of the project”, she disclosed, explaining that every girl child selected will be given a token every term to buy basic reading materials to support their study.
She further revealed that the project will construct schools in communities with sufficient populations of girls of secondary school age but lack existing schools.
“In all, AGILE has allocated 26 schools, 13 junior and 13 senior schools to be constructed in the most suitable areas across the state” she announced.
Furthermore, there are provision for 2 Skills acquisition centres or girl centers in each of the 11 local government areas of the state where the out of school children will be enrolled to acquire vocational skills.
AGILE also have special consideration for persons with special needs. “If AGILE should have its way, we won’t have any special schools, persons with special needs will be integrated into the normal or regular school system, because separating them in a school, called special school, we are stigmatizing them”, she noted.
“We are also attaching alot of relevance to the digital literacy which is indispensable in our today’s life. That’s why we incorporated it into our curriculum”, she declared, stressing the role of digital literacy in growth and development of children.
She clarified that the project will provide the schools it is building with digital infrastructure to support the computer literacy component.
“She affirmed that at the end of the program, the secondary schools built will be equipped with state-of-the-art computer laboratories, high-speed internet service, and solar facilities to ensure uninterrupted power supply”, she affirmed.
She acknowledged that there are people who believe that girls should not go to school, noting that the project has a dedicated component focused on behavioral change to address this mindset and raise awareness to ensure the project’s success.
She called on the general public to support the project, assuring that their doors will remain open to addressing any genuine complaints or concerns to ensure the successful implementation of the AGILE project in Gombe State.