3m Nigerian Girls Benefit From World Bank Project, AGILE

Over three million girls have so far benefitted from Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) project.

AGILE is a World Bank assisted project of the Federal Ministry of Education geared at improving secondary education opportunities for adolescent girls aged between 10 and 20.

The national project coordinator of AGILE, Amina Uba Haruna who disclosed this in Abuja on Wednesday, during the national launch of the programme titled “Madubi,” a Hausa word which means “mirror”, said it is aimed at advocating the importance of girls child education in Nigeria.

Haruna disclosed that the project is currently being run in Borno, Ekiti, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi and Plateau States.

“The Madubi is a national campaign that we want to advocate more on the outside society to know the importance of girl child education in Nigeria, that is why we adopt this word from Hausa because it is a mirror. That girl in a mirror is you, me and us.

“More than three million girls have been adopted so far under the AGILE project. We have renovated about 5000 class rooms, we are now going on construction, then we have financial incentives where it will allow these girls to retain them in schools.

“We have financial incentives for beneficiaries and caregivers also.

“Most of the states are going to join the project in June, about eleven states. The present states implementing this are Borno, Ekiti, Kaduna, Kano, Kebbi and Katsina, then Plateau state,” she added.

Haruna called for enrolment of more female teachers in schools so as to attract more girls, while saying that more states like Adamawa, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Sokoto, Zamfara and others will soon join to create opportunities for girls in these locations.