Through the support of UNICEF, the federal government has empowered about 16,000 girls in Katsina with digital literacy, skills and entrepreneurship.

Babangida Zubairu, the master trainer of the Nigerian Learning Passport, said this on Thursday at the end of a training session at the Katsina State School of Nursing.

According to him, the exercise started with training 2,000 teachers, then stepping down the training to pupils and other secondary school students in the state.

Mr Zubairu said, “Last week, we had another training of about 5,000 female students of some selected secondary and primary schools, and also out-of-school girls within the state. And now, we have trained another set of students from four selected higher institutions in the state – Federal College of Education, Katsina, Isa Kaita College of Education, Dutsinma, Hassan Usman Katsina Polytechnic and the School of Nursing, Katsina.

“In each school, we trained at least 2,000 students on digital literacy, digital skills and entrepreneurship, using the Nigeria learning passport.”

According to Mr Zubairu, the training aimed to promote digital literacy, digital skills and entrepreneurship of female students in Nigeria.

He noted that at the end of the training, each participant is expected to be enrolled on three different courses in Nigeria’s learning passport programme.

“By the time they finish the courses, the participants will be issued a certificate signed by the Federal Ministry of Education, UNICEF, and Microsoft. The participants can use the certificates as additional qualifications to serve as evidence that they have obtained a certificate in computer literacy and skills.

“The programme is an intervention from UNICEF, called Girls Employability and Skills Partnership programme (GESP), a two-year programme in four states: Katsina, Sokoto, Bauchi and Lagos,” he said.

The master trainer said the Nigeria Learning Passport is a project sponsored by the World Bank to support teaching and learning in Nigeria using a digital platform. 

(NAN)