The World Bank through its Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) project has concluded plans to give scholarships to 152,000 school girls in Katsina State to enhance enrolment, retention and transition of girls in school.
The State Coordinator of AGILE, Mustapha Shehu, disclosed this yesterday, during the ceremonial flag off of the disbursement of $5,092,000 school improvement grants to junior and senior secondary schools in the state.
He explained that the project would train 19,000 girls on digital literacy and market relevant skills, targeting poor senior secondary school girls who are less likely to continue schooling after graduation.
He added that 17,000 boys had been identified within the same focus classrooms to give them market-relevant skills, while teachers would also be trained to deliver the digital literacy skills.
Shehu said: “In this regard, the project is going to support 129 girls’ secondary schools. All the JSS1 and SS1 girls are going to benefit from this. The same beneficiaries about 152,000 are targeted for disbursement of scholarship within the next four weeks.
“We are going to provide scholarships to JSS1 and SS1 students for the current academic session that will end in August. In the next academic session in the same school, the new entrants of JSS1 and current JSS2 and the new entrants of SS1 and the current SS2 will benefit.
“In the second year within the same school, the new entrants of JSS1, JSS3 and of course the new entrants of SS1 and the current SS2 and SS3 will benefit from this gesture and the amount will be between N15,000 to N20,000 per girl per term.”
Under the project, he said, the World Bank in collaboration with the state government, would also construct 90 junior and 50 senior secondary schools across the 34 local government areas of the state.
He reiterated that the location of the schools would be based on conduct of mapping to identify communities that have a large number of children who reach primary six and junior secondary school but don’t have closer schools for transition.
Earlier, Governor Aminu Bello Masari, directed the state Ministry of Education to monitor the utilisation of the project’s funds and punish anyone or school found defaulting the agreed indemnity.
He urged members of the School-based Management Committees (SBMCs) saddled with the responsibility of executing the projects, to use the School Improvement Plan (SIP) as a guide.
