The project’s goal
is to improve secondary education opportunities among girls in targeted areas.
In a statement sent
to PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday, the bank said adolescent girls face many
constraints in accessing and completing secondary education.
“In northern
Nigeria, the lack of secondary schools is significantly greater with up to ten
primary schools for every secondary school. The poor condition of
infrastructure and a lack of water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities
makes it difficult for girls to stay in school” it said.
It also said that
nearly 80 per cent of poor households are in the north, which makes it very
challenging for them to cover the direct and indirect costs of schooling.
The bank said these
factors have contributed towards limiting the number of girls that have access
to secondary school.
“If nothing is done,
1.3 million girls out of the 1.85 million who began primary school in 2017/2018
in the northern states will drop out before reaching the last year of junior
secondary school.”
It said the AGILE
project will use the secondary school as a platform to empower girls through
education, life skills, health education (e.g. nutrition, reproductive health)
GBV awareness and prevention, negotiation skills, self-agency, and digital
literacy skills.
A minimum of 6
million girls and boys are expected to benefit from the project and many more
cohorts of students will continue benefiting after the project ends.
“There is no better
investment to accelerate Nigeria’s human capital development than to
significantly boost girls’ education.
“The AGILE project
will enable Nigeria to make progress in improving access and quality of
education for girls, especially in northern Nigeria. Addressing the key
structural impediments in a comprehensive way will create the enabling
environment to help Nigeria ensure better outcomes for girls, which will
translate into their ability to contribute to productivity and better economic
outcomes for themselves and the country” the release quoted the World Bank
Country Director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri, as saying.
Beneficiaries
The bank said the
ambitious project will support access to secondary education and empowerment
for adolescent girls in 7 states: Kano, Kebbi, Kaduna, Katsina, Borno, Plateau,
and Ekiti.
“Specifically, the
project will benefit about 6.7 million adolescents and 15.5 million direct
project beneficiaries will include families and communities in participating
states.”
The project has also
been adapted to respond to COVID-19 and will support a blended learning
approach using technology and media (TV and radio) to implement remote and
distance learning programs.
The AGILE project
will expand existing primary and Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) to include both
JSSs and Senior Secondary Schools to make schools functional, safe, and
inclusive to teaching and learning.
This entails
building more than 5,500 JSSs and 3,300 classrooms for SSSs, as well as
improving 2,786 Junior Secondary and 1,914 Senior Secondary schools with safe,
accessible, and inclusive infrastructure. About 340,000 girls will receive life
skills training in safe spaces, which will help them navigate challenges in
life.
This will
incorporate health information and key information on climate change, safety,
and gender-based violence awareness. To help girls thrive in the digital
economy, 300,000 girls will receive digital literacy training.
It also said the
project will offer half a million girls from the poorest households with
financial incentives in the form of scholarships to further support their
retention and completion of secondary school.
The project will
also support raising awareness to address social norms and promote positive
behaviours for a supportive and enabling environment for girls’ education using
communication and high-level advocacy.
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