World Bank supports Nigeria with $611m to get children back to school

The World Bank will support Nigeria with $611m to get children back to school under the Better Education Service Delivery for All programme, the Coordinator, Prof. Gidado Tahir, has said.

Tahir made this known in Kaduna on Friday at a meeting with officials of Kaduna State Universal Basic Education Board, on modalities for the implementation of the programme.

The BESDA national coordinator explained that the project is being supported by the World Bank to tackle the problem of out-of-school children in the country.

According to him, the alarming rate of out-of-school children has remained a worrisome phenomenon in the country that must be addressed.

“Whenever you attend international conferences and conventions, Nigeria is being described as one of the top nations with huge number of out-of-school children.
“The Federal Ministry of Education therefore decided to make the issue one of its top priority areas to find a way of tackling the issue.

“This attracted the World Bank who accepted to provide the Nigerian Government with $611 million dollars to implement BESDA in line with Universal Basic Education Commission programme.

“UBEC is focusing on increasing access, quality and ensuring equity; BESDA is also tailoring its attention towards doing that, but specifically focusing more on out-of-school children,” Tahir said.

He explained that BESDA would essentially focus on increasing access for out-of-school children and ensuring that children who attend school could read, write and manipulate figures.

The coordinator added that another basic objective of the programme was to strengthen accountability in the school system which has been very week over the years.
He said that 17 states with the highest number of out-of-school children in the country would participate in the programme.

The states include Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, Yobe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Niger, Ebonyi, Rivers, and Oyo.
According to Tahir, the states have more than 30 per cent of their school-age children out of school.

Also speaking, Malam Iro Umar of UBEC Coordination Support Team, explained that the meeting was organised for Kaduna SUBEB as implementing partner to understand the processes involved in the implementation of the programme.

“We are here to share with you the processes involved so that we will all understand what needs to be done before implementation of the programme begins.
“At the end of the meeting, every participating agency and individual would know what BESDA is and what their responsibilities are in the course of the implementation of the programme, “he added.
Umar said that out of the $611 million dollars, $578 million would be expended on Programme for Result (P for R) and $33 million on Technical Assistance (TA).

He explained that under the P for R, states would be rewarded for result achieved within a given period based on the number of out-of-school children they were able to return or enrol in school by gender.
On the technical assistance component, Umar said that $33 million dollars would be spent on various activities to strengthen the capacity of Federal and State government officials to improve monitoring and evaluation as well as data evaluation.

“The component will also increase effectiveness and transparency in UBE programme management and strengthen intergovernmental coordination in areas of policy formulation, strategic planning and monitoring of UBE programme implementation.

“Design and implementation of national learning assessment and a research agenda to inform UBE programme implementation and provide the analytical underpinning for future initiatives focused on out-of-school children.
“This would greatly improve the quality of basic education, “he added.


Earlier, Nasiru Umar, Executive Chairman, Kaduna SUBEB, thanked the Federal Government and UBEC for including Kaduna State as a participating state in the programme.

HOW WE PLAN TO DECIMATE OUT-OF-SCHOOL PUPILS IN AGEGE - Majiyagbe

Although, statistics have shown that the number of pupils enrollment into Agege primary schools has drastically increased since the square peg for the job was placed in the square hole with the appointment of Hon. Olalekan Olatunde Majiyagbe as the Executive Secretary of Agege Local Government Education Authority, LGEA, the need to further decimate the number of out-of-school children that litter the nooks and crannies of Agege remains on the front burner for him.

In a chat with Agegepulse Magazine, the brilliant dude spoke on the journey so far, the present state of the LGEA and plans to make primary education more interesting and appealing for every child in Agege. Excerpt:

“As a trained psychologist and counselor, I’ve been able to transform and impact lives through counseling. I am one of the team that produced the first gifted and talented child in Lagos state from Yewa Pry School, Agege. The survival of every man is in his brain; your brain generates solutions depending on how you apply it to issues. 

For someone to succeed in life he/she must identify his/her inner treasury. I became a consultant to World Bank on community issues around age 27, which was as a result of the cognitive academic system operating during our time. Our parents were ready to give physical support and assistance to us unlike now that parents are using money to buy their primary roles for their children. It is high time parents worked with teachers to build a better future for our pupils.

“In Agege, we have 50 Pry Schools and 2 special schools for children with special needs. Since I came in, we have been able to increase staff welfare, build more structures, organize periodic staff training for academic improvement and co-curricular activities. It is our believe that out of school children are products of unfavourable economy situations, what we are doing is to partner with market leaders to fish them out, though they are not too many, people use them as maids and as hawkers. We are working to have stakeholders meeting with CDAs and other stakeholders in order to develop a working paper and statistic on them. Through this, we'll proffer solution to that. Till date we have experience massive enrolment into our primary schools because parents appreciate government efforts to make learning accessible and appealing to pupils.

On his proposed 30days traditional dancing steps to mark his 10years investiture as the Asiwaju of Oko Oba Land, Majiyagbe said; "that is a new dimension to publicity, we want to create an euphoria to sensitize people that Asiwaju will soon celebrate 10th year anniversary. And that dancing step is not a regulated approach, I may not be in royal regalia, I can be at a point they will sing and dance and I will inform them to get ready for Asiwaju day. When the day gets closer, there will be royal movement on horse or open roof with guards and they will sing and dance at almost every point to dole out gifts to children all around. And when it gets to the D-day which is June 2017, it will be only church service and reception. I will also use the day to mark my 54th birthday.

On politics, he said; I've a commitment and vision to emerge Agege LG chairman. It's an age long dream because I've the wherewithal to bring succor to my people. We have tailor made plans to make Agege people happy. We’ve a strategy to run a successful Local Government system called Agege Model. I assure you that this model will be emulated by other LGAs in the long run".

Watch out for the full interview in the next edition of AgegePulse Magazine.