The Kano state government says forty percent 40% of out of school children in the state have returned as a result of the Adolescence Girls Initiatives for Learning and Empowerment’s (AGILE) intervention.
The state commissioner for Education Honorable Umar Haruna Doguwa disclosed this at a two-day engagement workshop with Kano North Islamic clerics and imams organized by AGILE and the state ministry of education in collaboration with Civil Society Action Collation on Education for All (CSACEFA) held in Kano on Tuesday.
Doguwa, represented by the director Monitoring and Evaluation at the ministry Mr. Yusha’u Hamza said there is no doubt that the AGILE program has helped to returned of the out of school children, a development that will go a long way in promoting as well as improving girl’s child education in the state.
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Hamza stated that there is a need for the community to understand the importance of AGILE’s activities, especially in the field of education, adding that “some parents do have a problem of refusing to allow their children to be enrolled in schools especially girl’s child.”
“AGILE is working day and night to ensure all problems of girls child and boys were be – enrolled back to schools through three ways, one, provision of infrastructure, two ensuring quality of teaching and learning and provisions of entrepreneurial skills so that the students even after schools they can be able to have source of livelihood,” said Hamza.
Also in his speech, the AGILE project coordinator in Kano, Alhaji Nasiru Abdullahi Kwalli, said that they have organized the workshop for the teachers and the imams of the mosques to discuss with them and to see how the AGILE project will achieve success especially in areas of public awareness.
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According to Kwalli, Islamic clerics and the imams of the mosques will play an important role in calling on the community to understand their responsibilities.
The coordinator said the two-day workshop will give the Islamic clerics and the imams the opportunity to give the necessary advice to the AGILE project especially an Islamic and cultural perspective on girl’s child education.
In a remark, the Kano state coordinator of (CSACEFA) Dr. Auwal Halilu urged attendees to workout modalities and techniques to be used in sensitizing the general public on the importance of girl’s child education and areas to be improve in achieving the set targets.
According to Dr. Halilu, who is a lecturer in the department of adult education and community development, Bayero university Kano said Kano and north-western Nigeria takes lion share in the number of out of school children in Nigeria.
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He hoped that the participants will use the two-day in coming out with all the relevant points and policies to be used in sensitizing the general public on the significance of AGILE project in the state.