Lai Mohammed lauds new approach to girl child education

The Girls for Girls (G4G) initiative of the United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF) is a new approach adopted to address poor school enrollment of girl child in the Northern states.

Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Minster of Information and Culture, said at a two-day Media Dialogue on G4G initiative in Gusau on Monday, that the initiative had helped to support girls to remain in school while also improving their learning achievement.

Represented by Mr Zira Nagga , Principal Information Officer, Federal Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, he said there was need to empower the girls through education as they were very important part of the society.

He said the position of girls in the society buttressed the need to ensure they were empowered, especially through education.

He said that they also formed a high percentage of success in developmental processes in any society.

“We all know that the G4G initiative is a component of the Girls Education Project Phase 3 being implemented in Northern Nigeria to help support girls to remain in school and improve their learning achievement.

“At this point, there is need to appreciate that some progress has been made in this bid, but a lot still needs to be done considering the fact that a large number of girl children are yet to be captured in the programme.”

Mohammed, however, commended UNICEF and other partners for creating visibility for development issues relating to the girl child education in the country.

Also speaking, Mr Geoffrey Njoku, Communication Specialist, UNICEF, said the initiative was apt because Zamfara state has a higher percentage of out of school girls and even out of school boys than any part of the country.

Njoku noted that the initiative was one out of the many used in bringing girls back to school.

“This project focuses of education of the girl child and not only that; it also entails educating the mothers.

“When you educate a mother, the likelihood of her own children going to school is much higher than an uneducated parent. In essence it is more important that the girl is educated.

“The success of the initiative is that it has improved enrollment and retention level of the children.

“The Cash Transfer Programme (CTP) is one strategy; the G4G is another strategy, so we are pulling everything together to bring girls to school.

Our correspondent reports that the G4G initiative was introduced in six local government areas of Zamfara in August 2017 to boost school enrollment.

The project was introduced to address hindrance of girls in attending schools.

The project was being implemented in other states such as Bauchi and Katsina states.