Centre advocates improved Girl-child enrollment in Adamawa

From Umar Dankano,Yola.

In its continued efforts of ensuring return of out of school girls back to education pursuit,the African Centre for Leadership and Development (Centre-LSD) has adevocated for enrollment, even as it enrolled a total of 1,221 back to schools in Adamawa state.

Senior Programme Officer of the Centre,Lawal Amodu made this disclosure at a media engagement event held in Yola weekend saying that the Centre’s community Led Collective Action for Girlchild Education (C-CAGE) project being executed in three(3) focal local government areas of Numan,Song and Maiha gave the desired achievements.

Amodu stressed that the massive mobilisation efforts of the community gate keepers who feel obliged to ensure that out of schoolgirls in their communities go to school played a significant role in the drive been funded by Malala Fund.

He stated that twenty-five(25) safe spaces have been established so far while each of the newly nine safe spaces for in and out of schoolgirls has capacity to host 50 girls on the average bringing the total of girls actively participating in the established safe spaces to 1076.

While commending the state government commitment for free education in the state, He maintained that the Centre LSD  drawing the attention of relevant stakeholders to encourage enrollment at Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS) in Pare community in Numan Local Government Areas ( LGA) of the state which has 17  total number of students with seven teachers including the principal 

He noted that the school in Pare community was estimated to accommodate 500 students but currently have its total number of students at 17  with obvious dilapidated infrastructures calling on urgent action to address the ugly situation.

“We strongly believe that such an institution should be deliberately targeted to admit a very good number of the out of schoolgirls in that area.

“We also appealed to the media to bring issues to limelight for government attention and to pay special attention to revamping GGSS Pa”, he said.

Amodu said in the last five months, Centre LSD implemented some activities on the C- Cage project which include inter -school debate competition between students from various schools in Yola, carried out town hall meeting to sensitized citizens on important of girl child enrollment.

“We also commended Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri for his commitment to free education in the state alongside the determation to recruit teachers following standard procedure for employment and efforts to prioritize education in the state as laid out in the 2022 budget.” Amodu said

He also drew the attention of the governor that despite his free education some principal are collecting illegal fee making it cumbersome for enrollment in the state.