As part of efforts to bridge the gap among out of school children, Save the Children International has enrolled not fewer than six thousand children in Kano under its Partnership for Learning for All in Nigeria (PLANE) Project to enable them transition back to school and also acquire skills for more productive life opportunities.
The Social Behavior Change Manager, PLANE Project, Ibrahim Haruna, made this known yesterday during a community symposium and spelling bee competition organized by PLANE in collaboration with Kano State Ministry of Education in Ajingi L.G.A of the State as part of Activities to mark the 2023 World Literacy Day.
According to him, the event aimed to promote literacy and engage stakeholders on the importance of education for children, particularly the girls and children with disabilities under the Project funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).
“We are mobilizing out of children especially between year 1-3 then from 3-6. We have two approaches in terms of these children education. The first is literacy and numeric boost and are community-based learning programs where children who are between the ages of 6 to 9 are actually learning within their communities, trained by our facilitators”.
“We also have those between 9-13 years and we call this the Catch-up club, these are children who have either fallen behind in their studies or who have dropped out of school in the last two years. We identify them and provide them space to catch up and transition back to school”.
Haruna noted that lack of awareness about the importance of education among some parents and community leaders is one of the major factors contributing to children dropping out of school and to curb this, the PLANE Project is mobilizing for support in terms of promoting social behavior change to ensure parents understand the benefit of their children going to school particularly the girlchild and children with disabilities whom are often neglected and left behind.
Ibrahim, further revealed that the project targets a total of 200,000 out of school children in Kano, Kaduna and Jigawa While the six thousands from Kano are from Ajingi and Makoda Local Government Areas respectively after a careful selection process which revealed that these two L.G.As have the highest number of out of School Children in the State and overall, Kano is expected to benefit more from the project considering the fact that the State has more out of school children.
“More out of school children in Kano will be enrolled on the program in addition to the six thousand we currently have on this phase of the project”, he assured.
The Project Manager who was in a cheerful mood following the outcome of the spelling bee competition said, the project is already achieving its aims as demonstrated by the pupils who all participated actively, with all the five communities obtaining the same mark and expressed optimism that more will be achieved before the end of the four years project.
He charged parents and other stakeholders to support government, Save the Children and other groups to ensure children are given opportunities to acquire education which is the bedrock of every society.