By Maryam Abeeb
The Federal Government has launched the national campaign for Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) project for more advocacy of importance of girl child education.
The AGILE project is an initiative of the federal government supported by the World Bank to reduce the gender gap in secondary completion rate and labour market transition among adolescents girls between the ages of 10 to 20 years in Nigeria.
The campaign which was tagged: “Madubi” is said to a mirror or looking glass theories which we can view not just a reflection of the girls child’s potential, but that of the entire society.
The National project coordinator, Amina Buba during her opening remark at the launching in Abuja, explained that the project, madubi is a national campaign aimed at advocating to the outside society on the importance of girls child education.
According to her,madubi means a mirror of a child.
She noted that the project will be looking at constraints facing adolescent girls.
She added that the project will also encourage more female teachers in school.
Buba said that about 7 states has been involved in the project such as: Kano , Plateau, Ekiti, Kaduna, Kebbi , Borno and Kastina.
“About 3 million children have been enrolled. we have renovated over 5,000 classrooms we are now going on construction, we now have the financial incentives where it will allow retention of girls in school and financial incentives for beneficiaries and caregivers”, he said .
Further speaking, the representative of Madubi, Khadijah Bello during her presentation reiterated that Nigeria is faced with a gender learning crisis.
While lamenting that 60% of out of school children are girls, Bello stated that less than 30% of primary school girls transit to secondary school.
According to her, Adolescent is a critical stage in human development , even more so for girls after the early years.
She explained that adolescence and secondary education are the period most capable of influencing the kind of women and humans that they turn out to become.
“By scaling investment in girl’s secondary education, AGILE offers a window to tackle other problems such as poverty, child marriage, maternal and child mortality and even gender based violence”, she stated.
