Bauchi Governor Pledges Renewed Commitment To Girl Child Education

Sultan Blames Poverty For High Number of Out of School Children

FG says Traditional and Religious Leaders Crucial in Drive To Promote Girl Child Education

From Paul Orude Bauchi

Sultan Blames Poverty For High Number of Out of School Children

FG says Traditional and Religious Leaders Crucial in Drive To Promote Girl Child Education

From Paul Orude Bauchi

Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed, has reiterated the commitment of his administration to work with development partners to ensure every girl child receives sound education in the state.

Mohammed gave the assurance during Traditional and Religious Leaders Conference on Girls Education in the North East Zone, held at New Banquet Hall, Bauchi, on Thursday.

He commended the World Bank for investing the sum of 80 million US dollars for the education of the girl child in the state.

The huge amount is being invested by the federal ministry of education through the Adolescent Girls Learning and Experience (AGILE) project for the empowerment of the girl child.

“We are leverage on that to even educate the young boys,” he stated.

“We are renovating over 120 secondary schools, providing all the infrastructures and our work plan is done in such a way that most of it is not just for advocacy but also for physical, tangible achievements in education.

 “We have been doing our best to encourage the girl child by giving them some kind of conditional cash transfer of N5000 and N10000.

“We have given out about 16, 260 per handouts in over 120 schools. Certainly that is to complement what the AGILE is doikng. Certainly is not enough as poverty is a recurring decimal”

The all the governors of the North East sub region had also pledged to tackle poverty to ensure that the girl child remains in school.

“Poverty is hampering the education of the girl child,” he lamented.

“We the governors in our various states came together under the North East Governors Forum to establish a peer review mechanism.

“We are working with a robust establishment of the Federal government under the NEDC where we have come up with a master plan on how to address education.

“This plan is to build mega schools, you can see them coming out, and we are working to make sure the human capital is provided”

Mohammed thanked the federal government and the World Bank through the AGILE for the empowerment of girls which has given benefitting states lot of resources.

“In Bauchi we have been allocating more than 15 percent f our budget for education,’ he said.

“Again we conducted a viable education summit after looking at all our problems and challenges, we were able to look at where we will address the issues of enrolment, retention, completion”

“We have built over 5000 blocks of classrooms since we came in in 2019 and renovated some of them.

“We leverage on our development partners, the federal government, UNICEF and the rest to build schools”

In a remark, Sa’ad Abubakar the Sultan of Sokoto, reiterated the need to educate the girl child hence the conference.

Th  Sultan  explained that weeks back there was a similar conference for the North West  held in Kaduna which he attended.

‘Today as it pleases Allah we are in Bauchi for the north east of this programme and in a couple of days we will be in Minna for the north central,” he said.

“We started putting the thing geo-political zones of the north o discuss this impratnt topic of educating our girls.

“There is need to educate our girls.

“The problem is lack of funds for a common person to take his children or girl child to school.

“He can’t afford to give her uniform, he can’t afford to but her books, pay school fees and that is why we keep up harping on revamping our educational sector.

“Compulsory education must be compulsory for everybody. You have to pay for everything.

“Once you tell somebody you have to pay for t education of your girl child to university level without you paying a kobo he will. That is why the out of school children are in millions in the north in particular”

He called for sustenance of the AGILE project as remedy out of the long backwardness in spheres of societal development

In a keynote address, Minister of Education, Dr. Morufu Olatunji Alausa, said one of priorities of the Ministry is transforming the Nigeria Education Sector to reduce the number of Out of School Children especially the Girl Child.

The minister, who was represented by Dr Bukar Bukar Bai, a Director from the ministry, argued that good policies, programmes, and initiatives are not be enough to achieve the desired results.

“There is the need for continuous advocacy and sensitization of community members,” he said.

“Parents, women, men, youth, and all segments of our communities need to buy-in to these programmes to ensure success.

“As you are all aware, the traditional and faith leaders serve as gatekeepers to all our communities and as a result, this necessitates consultation and engagements with the traditional and interfaith leaders in order to get their views and secure their buy-in so as to educate members of their communities and congregations positively especially the youths”