1.5m girls enrolled in school in 6 Northern states in 10 years—Report

No fewer than 1.5 million girls enrolled in schools in six Northern states in the last 10 years under the Girls Education Project Phase III (GEP3).

This is contained in the report of an evaluation of the project presented on Thursday in Kaduna State.

The GEP3, which began in 2012 and ended in 2022, targeted one million girls and surpassed it with over 500,000 girls per household.

It is funded by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), UK, through UNICEF, and implemented by the Federal and State Governments of Nigeria.

It is aimed at improving access, enrolment, retention, and learning outcomes for girls in basic education in the northern Nigerian states of Bauchi, Katsina, Niger, Sokoto, Zamfara, and Kano.

The findings revealed that 23,655 girls benefited from the cash transfer program, and more than 67, 000 teachers and Integrated Qur’anic Schools (IQS) facilitators were trained, which improved teaching competency from 12 percent to 52 percent.

The report also showed that 2.6 million children continued education through alternate learning during COVID-19, where back-to-school campaigns conducted in 18,567 schools resulted in 94 percent of children returning to school.

The report further showed that more than 3,800 schools and IQS implemented the Reading and Numeracy Activity (RANA) with improvements in foundational literacy.

Also, the functionality of school-based management committees (SBMCs) and community-based management committees (CBMCs) increased from 30 percent to 80 percent with whole school development plans.

The plans included activities to increase girls’ enrollment and retention, which increased from 45 percent to 67 percent.

Speaking during the dissemination meeting of the findings, the Officer in Charge (OiC), UNICEF Kaduna Field Office, Dr. Idris Baba, noted that the success of the project could be attributed to adopting a comprehensive societal approach.

Baba said it could be considered a wide range of social, psychosocial, cultural, and economic factors that affect girls’ education.

“The combination of multiple intervention types, targeting various stakeholders and utilizing different change-inducing modalities, was instrumental in inducing the desired shifts in perceptions and behaviors.

“The Girls’ Education Programme 2012–2022 in Northern Nigeria has made remarkable progress in reducing inequalities and improving girls’ access, enrolment, retention, and learning outcomes in basic education.

“The achievements, lessons learned, and recommendations presented in this brief demonstrate the program’s effectiveness and provide valuable insights for future interventions,” he said.

In her remark, the Director of the Senior Secondary Education Department, Federal Ministry of Education, Hajiya Binta Abdulkadir, noted that the GEP3 was a success in so many ways.

Abdulkadir said that it had changed the narrative in school enrollment and completion at the Basic Education level.

Represented by Mrs. Monica Ogah, Director, Unity Schools Division, she added that GEP3 was conceived as a result of the success achieved through the implementation of GEP1 and GEP2.

She said that the increasing need to improve enrolment, retention, and completion rates at the basic education level could not be overemphasized; hence, GEP3 focused on three thematic areas.

Abdulkadir explained that under the thematic areas, activities like the Cash Transfer Programme, community disengagement (School Based Management Committee, SBMC), Center Based Management Committee, and Mothers’ Association helped in achieving improved access, retention, and completion of school.

“GEP3 also provided capacity development for teachers and school administrators through strategies like the High Level Women Advocates (HILWA), G4G, and other activities.

“Girls were supported and mentored to enroll, remain, complete, and transit to higher levels of education. These strategies impacted positively on girls enrollment and completion of school,” she said.