Bauchi: Stakeholders want more female teachers, security in areas

From Ahmed Kaigama,Bauchi

Stakeholders in the education sector in Bauchi state have lamented over inadequate female teachers and insecurity in rural areas.
They also cited them as factors affecting the enrollment of girls and quality of education in rural schools in the state.
The stakeholders made the observation at a one day review meeting on the implementation Girls for Girls Initiative , (G4G,) organized by the FAHIMTA Women and Youth Development Initiative, FAWOYDI in collaboration with UNICEF,held at the Development Exchange Commission office in Bauchi.
The Executive Director of FAHIMTA Women and Youth Development Initiative, Hajiya Maryam Garba in her welcome address said that the G4G project was a component of the Girls Education Project, phase 3 (GEP3), being implemented in Bauchi, Niger, Kastina, Sokoto and Zamfara states through a collaboration with UNICEF and the Federal Government with funding from the United Kingdom Department of International Development, DFID.
She said that the aim of the meeting was to track the progress of the implementation of the G4G initiative in the state and identify challenges as well as bottlenecks of the project in order to proffer solutions.
Some of the participants observed during the review meeting that the project which was aimed at increasing girls enrollment, retention and completion in schools, experienced some challenges ranging from recruitment of unqualified teachers by the government, rape, absenteeism of girls in schools, lack of training of teachers and politizing postings of teachers to rural areas amongst others.
Ahmed kaigama, a journalist in Bauchi, said some of the female teachers posted to the rural areas were not willing to go to their areas of postings because of family commitments and prefer the urban areas.
He said that government should recruit teachers residing in rural areas where those schools were based.
Another participant, Zainab Ahmed advised government to setup mechanisms whereby teachers will be monitored and supervise the postings of teachers in the rural areas to ensure compliance.
“Government should be committed and monitor the postings of teachers as well as employ only qualified graduates because the system is already polluted with unqualified teachers” she said In her address at the meeting, the UNICEF Education Specialist Nneka Onora , commended FAHIMTA for partnering with UNICEF in its quest to ensure that more girls are enrolled in school, adding that the project has recorded a lot of achievement which include the training of 150 women in 50 schools of Shira, Alkeleri and Ganjuwa local areas of the state, the forming of 300 G4G groups, acceptance of the project by mentors amongst others.