1.2m Students, 5,000 Teachers To Benefit From EU Project

A total of 1.2 million students, 5,000 teachers,150 education officials and 5,400 community members are to benefit from the new European Union’s funded education and empowerment intervention programme in three states.

The states are Kano, Sokoto and Jigawa.

The programme is aimed at increasing the number of girls and boys benefiting from safe, inclusive, relevant learning and skills development opportunities in the states.

Briefing the Kano State commissioner for education, Alhaji Umar Haruna Doguwa, in his office about the programme, the team leader of a delegation from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Mr Michael Banda, revealed that the four-year programme which commenced last September, 2023 to August 2027 would cover 10 local government areas each from the states. 

The ministry’s director of public enlightenment, Balarabe Abdullahi Kiru, in a statement made available to journalists quoted Mr Banda as saying, “The programme operation is categorised into three main outputs which involved strengthened education governance and learning, expanded access to safe and inclusive learning environment and giving quality, continuous learning and enhanced competencies.”

Banda said as the world is changing with digital technology, there is need to adopt systematic approach to education sector whereby both teachers and learners would be provided with digital training.

He said if digital technology is to be introduced to transform the education sector, definitely teachers, learners as well as the ministry officials must be fully involved to acquire the needed training.

 “Not only that, under this programme, we are proposing to empower and capacitate some education committees like Schools Based Management Committee (SBMC) as part of our effort to reinforce community partnership towards developing the standard of education,” he added.

In his response, Doguwa thanked the European Union for selecting Kano to be one of the beneficiaries.

He informed the delegation that the present administration had approved the release of fund to conduct census of all teachers aimed at ensuring comprehensive record of teaching staff across the state.