From Mustapha Adamu, Kano
DO Take Action, in partnership with the Malala Fund, has launched a three-year education initiative aimed at supporting married girls, young mothers and pregnant adolescents to return to school in Kano State.
The initiative, tagged Reclaiming Education (REED), is designed to strengthen the implementation of Kano State’s education re-entry policy and help girls who have dropped out or are at risk of leaving school to continue their education.
Speaking at a high-level stakeholders’ meeting in Kano on Thursday, the Permanent Secretary, Kano State Ministry of Education, Bashir Baffa Muhammad, said the programme would develop practical guidelines for implementing the state’s re-entry policy.
“The rationale behind this workshop is to define and demonstrate the re-entry guidelines for adolescent women who have dropped out of school,” Muhammad said.
He explained that the government was committed to ensuring that the policy moved beyond documentation to practical implementation.
“We are here to define and see that what is signed is implemented. Every woman or every girl deserves a better education,” he added.
According to the organisers, the REED programme will initially operate in Madobi, Gezawa and Warawa Local Government Areas, covering 30 government schools and 20 Islamiyya community education nodes.
A major component of the initiative is the Transition Early Warning System (TEWS), powered by EDUDATA. The system is designed to identify girls who are out of school or at risk of dropping out, create trackable records and monitor their educational progress from Junior Secondary School to Senior Secondary School.
The programme will also introduce a Dual-Track Enrolment System linking government schools with Islamiyya community education centres to identify and support girls at risk of leaving school.
Executive Director of DO Take Action, Precious Ebere-Chinonso Obi, said the initiative was focused on translating Kano State’s re-entry policy into practical interventions that would reach vulnerable girls.
“It is good to have a policy, but in order to have an implementation pathway, that is why we are coming here to work on the REED framework,” Obi said.
She identified poverty, early marriage and inadequate access to educational facilities as some of the major factors responsible for girls dropping out of school.
According to her, the programme will move beyond general statistics by identifying individual girls, assessing their specific challenges and providing targeted support.
“The Transition Early Warning System is designed to track these girls, identify them, predict when their next dropout will be and see how we can ensure that they stay in school,” she said.
Obi called on the Kano State Government to institutionalise the REED and TEWS frameworks and establish a dedicated budget line for implementing the education re-entry policy.
She also stressed the need for safe, secure and inclusive learning facilities for girls returning to school.
“These girls who want to come back to school cannot come back to dilapidated buildings. They cannot come back to a building that is not secure,” she said.
The programme aims to identify, track and support more than 600 girls considered at risk during its first two years. It will also train 100 school leaders, including principals and Mallams.
Organisers are targeting at least a 75 per cent retention rate among supported girls as they progress from Junior Secondary School to Senior Secondary School.
The first two years of the initiative will focus on Kano State, while the model is expected to be extended to Madagali Local Government Area of Adamawa State in the third year.
A youth participant, Ahmed Junaid, said early marriage remained a major reason some girls abandoned their education, adding that some married women also faced resistance from their husbands when attempting to return to school.
“A lot of girls dropped out, not just because of lack of access. Some dropped out as a result of early marriage,” Junaid said.
The REED initiative will run from August 15, 2026, to August 14, 2029, with the Malala Fund serving as the grant partner.
Organisers said the long-term objective is to protect girls’ 12-year education journey by ensuring that marriage, pregnancy, poverty and other challenges do not permanently prevent them from completing their education.
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