Participants at a stakeholders’ workshop on National Gender Policy on Education in Bauchi State have drafted decisions for adaptation, law enactment and implementation in the state educational institutions and communities.
The executive director of a non-governmental organisation, Young Leaders Network (YLN), Mr. Seun Justin Onarinde, who coordinated the workshop outlined the decisions reached at the Bauchi national event which included the adaptation of the document by all partners after its review and conceptualisation, as well as enforcing its provisions in their daily work.
On AGILE, the workshop adopts that the State Ministry of Education (SMoE), and YLN should take the lead in publishing and widely disseminating the policy to reach every school, every stakeholder, and every community, as it should also be published in local languages.
“CSOs should ensure that new proposals, strategies, and grant applications reflect and align with this policy to guarantee coherence and sustainability. All participants should prepare reports of this workshop and submit to their executives and organisations, so momentum is not lost while awaiting the final adopted document”.
The workshop said that the State Ministry of Education, alongside key MDAs, must convene a workshop to translate the policy into actionable work plans, budgets, and activities. Without operationalisation, this policy will remain a paper exercise, while the commissioner and the Ministry of Education should take steps to brief the State Executive Council (SEC) and the governor to secure political buy-in and state-wide ownership.
Mr. Seun Onarinde also read that the Steering Committee be inaugurated immediately after the decisions adoption, and that the media must be strategically engaged as partners in disseminating the provisions of the policy, ensuring public awareness and accountability.
Onarinde explained that the policy is about rewriting the future of Bauchi’s children, particularly the girls, who too often are left behind by circumstances they did not choose, stressing that is about moving from good intentions to clear commitments, expressing regret that too many girls still drop out of school due to early marriage, teenage pregnancy, or the simple lack of support to continue.
According to him, ignorance robs the people of innovation, fuels poverty, and limits the potential of the entire society, emphasising that investing in girls’ education is not charity, but smart economics, justice and common sense.
He had earlier urged all stakeholders to be bold, practical, inclusive, listen to each other, challenge each other, and co-create a Gender in Education Policy that reflects the hopes and realities of the people, a policy that is not just written on paper but lived out in classrooms, communities, and in the lives of the state children.
The State Commissioner of Education, Dr Lawal Mohammed Rimin Zayam, had earlier explained that the policy is all about bringing back the state out of school children with a view to retain them, as captured by AGILE, as it is being implemented in the state.
Dr. Lawal described the collaboration as very good which aligned with the state policy on education, and called for the cooperation of the partners and stakeholders in the successful implementation of the policy in the state.
Also speaking, the Bauchi State chairman of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools, Musa Ibrahim Ardo, described the event as a policy making activity which is marvelous, especially in capturing children who leave school before completion for personal reasons or another.
He explained that the policy would afford those children, especially the girls’ child the opportunity to complete their formal education, assuring that all private schools in the state would comply with the policy, while sensitising the schools about any policy applicable to them approved by the ministry of education.
