Bauchi State Ministry of Education, in collaboration with Adolescent Girls Initiatives for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE), has organised a five-day training for 3,009 School Based Management Committees (SBMC) executives on their roles, responsibilities and development of school improvement plan (SIP).
Speaking during the opening ceremony of the five-day training on Monday held at Government Girls College Bauchi, the State AGILE Project Coordinator, Malam Ali Sule Gar, expressed worry over the inability to fill the required number of pupils/students allocated for the AGILE additional funding (AF) project.
The project, which earmarked 100 schools, that is, 50 upper basic and 50 senior secondary schools, to benefit from the intervention, has so far documented 7000 out of the total of 2250 pupils and students targeted beneficiaries.
Ali Gar said even with over 7009 admissions issued and continued sensitisation across media outfits and social media platforms, the project still has a target of 15,000 to cover representing 68 percent.
He identified poverty, poor infrastructure, and proximity as some of the challenges hindering access among the targeted beneficiaries and charged the participants to redouble their efforts to address the challenges in enrolment, especially among the girl child.
Declaring the training open, the state commissioner for Education, Dr. Jamila Mohammed Dahiru, said AGILE is one of the few projects that recognises and empowers SBMCs to promote educational activities, hence the need for the participants to pay attention towards the successful implementation of the set targets.
Represented by the ministry’s permanent secretary Alhaji Ali Babayo, he pledged the state government’s readiness to continue contributing to relevant bodies towards improving education in the state.
For his part, the speaker State House of Assembly Alhaji Sulaiman Y. Sulaiman said AGILE is a major key project of the government that recognises the role of SBMCS towards enrollment, retention and improving school in the state.
Represented by the chairman of the House Committee on Education, Dr. Nasiru Ala, who emphasised that the government alone cannot solve the problems of education, urged the trainees to be accountable and transparent in their assignment towards salvaging the future of the younger generation.
On his part, the state chairman Committee on Education and Emir of Bauchi Dr Rilwanu Adamu represented by Sarkin Yakin Bauchi Alhaji Aliyu Yakubu Lame called for mass mobilisation of girls at the grassroots and inclusion of divorcees in the project to achieve the set objectives.
Also speaking, the executive chairman SUBEB Alhaji Adamu Duguri who expressed worry over the alarming rate of divorce and gender-based violence, reminded the SBMC members that they have greater responsibility in monitoring, supervision, enrolment and guarding of educational facilities in their respective communities.
The 5-day training which drew 3 SBMC members from each of the 1,003 benefitting schools across the state, also has the 20 local government education secretaries among other stakeholders in attendance.
