No fewer than 16,620 adolescent girls will benefit from viable education support under the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) project in Bauchi State.

The project coordinator, Jamila Mohammed-Dahiru, said this during a breakfast meeting with heads of media organisations in Bauchi on Saturday.

AGILE is being implemented by the Federal Ministry of Education with support from the World Bank, designed to improve basic and post-basic education opportunities for adolescent girls.

Ms Mohammed-Dahiru said the Bauchi government had submitted its proposed work plan to the national coordinating unit and contributed N150 million as a counterpart fund to facilitate the successful implementation of the project.

She said the state’s project unit had identified 120 schools and 30 non-formal schools for participation through a community-driven approach to ensure the project’s sustainability.

Ms Mohammed-Dahiru said the project would be implemented based on a 60/40 per cent ratio for girls and boys in basic and post-basic schools across 20 local government areas of the state.

The project coordinator said the state planned to construct new classrooms to expand 60 schools and rehabilitate dilapidated ones in 60 other schools.

She said the schools would be provided with furniture, learning materials and information technology facilities to make them functional, safe, inclusive, and more conducive to teaching and learning.

On fostering an enabling environment for girls, she said the objective was to promote behavioural change, which acts as a barrier to girls’ education, through sensitisation and advocacy campaigns to promote girls’ education and empowerment.

“It also aimed at enhancing digital literacy and entrepreneurial skills development to empower girls to enable them to be useful as they transit to adulthood.

“We have a Conditional Cash Transfer programme to provide financial incentives to the poorest households, to address barriers to girls’ enrollment, retention and completion of school.

“Each of the beneficiaries will receive N5,000 for the junior schools and N10,000 for those in senior schools per term, respectively,” she said.

According to her, the state government will recruit an additional 3,000 teachers to ensure effective management of the schools.

She added that teachers and members of the School-Based Management Committees (SBMCs) would be trained to fast-track effective monitoring and supervision for successful project implementation. 

(NAN)