Fed Govt secures $20m to reduce out-of-school kids

By Frank Ikpefan, AbujaThe Federal Government has secured $20 million grants from the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) to reduce the number of out-of-school children in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.The government said its Ministry of Education decided to use the fund in the three Northeastern states because they had the worst effects of insurgency.Minister of Education Adamu Adamu said this yesterday at the official kick off of the implementation of the GPE Accelerated Funding on education in emergency in Abuja.Adamu listed the benefits the selected states will derive from the grant.A total of 200,000 conflict-affected children, including those with special needs, will be provided with critical life skills and psycho-social support, while 28,000 teachers will be supported to acquire requisite teaching qualifications.Read Also; UNICEF decries high rate of female pupils out of schoolSimilarly, another 58,000 teachers will undergo different levels of professional development specifically tailored to meeting their individual current and future needs.Further, the GPE Accelerated Fund will be applied to selected interventions that will mitigate the challenges and respond to urgent educational needs emerging from the protracted crisis in the North East region, COVID-19 pandemic and the gaps identified by the Joint Education Needs Assessment (JENA) of the education cluster as well as the policies and strategic priorities defined by the three states in the various Education Sector Plans (ESPs) and State Education Sector Operational Plan (SESOP), he said.Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, said many education facilities had been destroyed and children displaced from their homes as a result of the insurgency in the region.Echono said the fund would assist the government to ensure that education continues, even in conflict situations.The aim of the GPE Accelerated Funding grant is to reduce the number of out-of-school children and improve foundational skills, establish robust teacher preparation, professional development and recruitment systems, address protection issues and strengthen leadership capacity for education in emergency for long term sustainability as well as system strengthening.Each activity will include consideration for children within the poorest wealth quintiles to redress inequities due to poverty and displacement resulting from violent conflict. This fund will also assist in what the government is doing to ensure that education continues even in conflict situations, said.
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