It is no longer news that Nigeria ranks top among nations with out-of-school children.
This is as statistics indicates that there are 18.5 million out of school children in Nigeria of which 60 percent of the number are girls from Northern Nigeria.
The situation which is further worsened by the rate of gender inequality where only 1 to 4 girls from poor families complete junior secondary school, is also affected by factors including attacks on education facilities.
As part of efforts to change the narrative, the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF through the support of the United Kingdom assisted Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, FCDO initiated the Girls Education Project GEP 3 in six northern states of Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, Bauchi, Zamfara and Niger states.
The overall objective of GEP3 project which started in 2012 is to get one million girls into schoolvas well as ensured their enrolment, retention and learning in order to improve their social and economic opportunities in northern Nigeria. However, with few months to the end of the intervention initiative, Head of UNICEF Field Office, Kano state, Rahama Farah, at a media dialogue recently held in Kano said the project has overshoot the expected target in school enrollment. Accordingly, the focus for girl child
education as a yardstick to reduce incidents of child mortality rates including poverty as well as tool for promotion of equitable growth was analysed by Unicef Education Specialist, Mrs Azuka Menkiti.
Assessment of impacts of the GEP 3 initiative in some local councils in the north west state of Kano, one of the benefiting states indicate drastic improvement in parental demand and support for girls education.
Asmau Mustapha is a member of the Mother’s Association in Ungogo who highlighted the role played by the association, in the drastic reduction of out-of-school girls in the locality.
There is no doubt that the over 8 years GEP 3 initiative has changed the educational landscape of girls education in the north, with a record 1.4 millions girls back to School, improved teaching and learning environment as well as training and retraining of teachers among other achievements, which not surprisingly is heralding demands for further extension of the project to other parts of the North.
