Groups advocate second chance for married adolescents to resume schooling

From: Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

The Helen Memorial Foundation (HMF,) and Basilieia Vulnerable Persons Rights Initiative (BVPRI,) have called for the review and implementation of the Kaduna State Second Chance Policy to give opportunities to female school dropouts to become educated.
The call was made during a round table meeting with media partners to devise a means of amplifying voices and awareness on the Advocacy for ICT Remote Learning for Out of School Married Adolescents (AIRLOMA,) Program.
The AIRLOMA Program is an initiative of HMF and BVPRI with funding from Rise Up, seeking to explore and utilise the educational provisions of section 6.2 of the Kaduna State Second Chance Policy for the benefit of out-of-school married adolescent girls (OMAs.)
The Project Consultant for AIRLOMA, Mr Shinkut Sheyin noted that the advocacy is to improve learning for the OMA through ICT.
According to him, the project is to help tackle some of the challenges to be encountered during the implementation of the second chance policy by providing a better option for learning through ICT.
He added that they hope to educate the OMAs to become as literate as their mates without having low self-esteem due to lack of exposure.
“The Initiatives we are advocating for, are nothing new to Kaduna State, it has keyed into many initiatives to make learning easy such as the Nigerian Passport, and Open Schooling, amongst others.”
“So the education system has already made it possible for these initiatives to thrive and we are advocating for these initiatives to be included in the second chance policy.”
BVPRI Representative, Ejiro Mudiare, said that the program aims at connecting young female school dropouts with the digital world by introducing them to ICT learning.
He revealed that there has been an outreach to the OMAs, to get their views and expectations and to see how they can benefit from the program.