202,817 Adamawa pupils get UNICEF bags, learning aids

Maryam Abeeb

A total of 202, 817 children schooling in five local government areas of Adamawa State have benefitted from school bags, books and other instructional materials provided by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The materials were handed over to the benefitting LGAs Tuesday during an inaugural distribution ceremony organised jointly in Yola by the Fund and the Adamawa State Universal Basic Education Board (ASUBEB).
UNICEF Education Consultant in the state, Mr Isaiah Joel, said during the handing over of the materials at the Mahmud Ribadu Square, that 5,070 teachers would also benefit from the intervention in the five LGAs, namely Fufore, Girei, Guyuk, Mubi North and Yola South.
He explained that the school materials would be distributed across the LGAs in this initial phase of the project tagged UNICEF School Supply which is planned to extend to all the 21 LGAs of the state in the near future.
Each of the targeted 202, 817 pupils and students in the initial benefitting five LGAs is to get school bag, a set of notebooks, pens and pencils, crayons, and other writing materials the beneficiaries require.
“We call our package ‘School in a Carton’ because each carton of our supplies contains materials that a teacher and 40 children would need for a school term,” Isaiah Joel said, adding that the UNICEF School Supply comes with teaching materials for use of teachers.
Earlier during the UNICEF School Supply distribution flag-off ceremony, the Acting Executive Chairperson of ASUBEB,
Hajiya Fadimatu Alfa, said it was the first time that the state would receive such large consignment of instructional materials as donation.
She thanked UNICEF for both the School Supply project and other projects that the UN body had done for the state in the past.