A total of 1.2 million students, 5,000 teachers,150 education officials and 5,400 community members are to benefit from the new European Union’s funded education and empowerment intervention programme in three states in the country.
The team leader of a delegation from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Mr Michael Banda, disclosed this during a visit to the Kano State commissioner for education, Alhaji Umar Haruna Doguwa in his office.
Banda, who named the state of interventions as Kano, Sokoto and Jigawa, stated that the programme is aimed at increasing the number of girls and boys benefiting from safe, inclusive, relevant learning and skills development opportunities in the states.
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He also stated that the four-year programme which commenced September 2023 will last until August 2027 and would cover 10 local government areas each from the states.
A statement signed by the Ministry’s Director of Public enlightenment, Balarabe Abdullahi Kiru, quoted Banda as saying, “The programme operation is categorized into three main outputs which involved strengthened education governance and learning, expanded access to safe and inclusive learning environment and giving quality, continuous learning and enhanced competencies.”
Banda said as the world is changing with digital technology, there is a need to adopt a systematic approach to the education sector whereby both teachers and learners would be provided with digital training.
He said if digital technology is to be introduced to transform the education sector, definitely teachers, learners as well as the ministry officials must be fully involved to acquire the needed training.
“Not only that, under this programme, we are proposing to empower and capacitate some education committees like Schools Based Management Committee (SBMC) as part of our effort to reinforce community partnership towards developing the standard of education,” he added.
In his response, Doguwa appreciated the European Union for selecting Kano to be one of the beneficiaries.
He disclosed that the present administration had approved the release of funds to conduct a census of all teachers, aimed at ensuring a comprehensive record of teaching staff across the state.