Borno, Adamawa, Yobe Get $20m GPE Grant To Improve Inequalities

BY TEMI OHAKWE, ABUJA – Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States are to benefit from a 20 million US dollars Global Partnership on Education (GPE), grant to improve inequalities in access and quality learning.

Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, who announced this in Abuja on Tuesday at the launch of the implementation of the Global Partnership on Education (GPE), said the grant would focus on strategic actions that are catalytic in improving the education architecture in the three focal states.

Adamu said the fund would be applied to selected interventions that would mitigate the challenges and respond to urgent educational needs emerging from protracted crisis in the North East region.

He said; “Across the three states, the grant will reduce the number of out-of-school children, establish robust teacher preparation, professional development and recruitment systems, address protection issues and strengthen leadership capacity for education in emergency.

“The overall targeted outcome of this joint partnership is to improve access to education through formal and non-formal approaches, improve learning outcomes and the continuity of learning for conflict-affected children in safe, healthy and protective environments in North-East”.

The minister also said that a total of 200,000 conflict-affected children, including those with special needs will be provided with critical life skills and psycho-social support.

Adamu added that 28,000 teachers would be supported to acquire requisite teaching qualifications while another 58,000 teachers would undergo different levels of professional development.

Earlier, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr Sonny Echono, said the ministry had decided to utilise the fund in the three North-East states as they are the most affected by insurgency.

According to Echono; “The aim of the GPE Accelerated Funding Grant is to reduce the number of out-of-school children”.