Sokoto, Kano Two Other States Get $100 Million Education Grant.

Sokoto government will meet all its obligations to international donor agencies in order to hasten development of targeted sectors across the state, Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, hassaid.Speaking in Abuja Monday during the launch of the Nigerian Partnership for Education Project (NIPEP), Tambuwal said enabling environment would be provided for the utilisation of all grants received to achieve the desired results.The NIPEP is an effort of the Federal Ministry of Education and the Global Partnership for Education to combat poor performance of five states in the North-west geo-political zone of thecountry.The sum $100 million has been set aside for the project. The grant is expected to bring relief to funding of education programmes where indexes on education appears to be at the lowest ebb compared to other regions.The money would be used to scale up basic education, with emphasis on the girl-child in the five focal states.  The states, according to Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, are Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Jigawa and Sokoto.

According to him, the grant, which is the GPE intervention in Nigeria, targeted states because of the high number of out-of-school children in the zone.“The North-west geo-political zone has the highest number of out-of-school children even before the activities of insurgents compounded the problem with the spillover from the North-east,” the minister, represented by the Minister of State for Education, Professor Anthony Onwuka, said.The minister tasked the benefiting states to utilise the fund transparently in line with the anti-corruption stance of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.He reiterated the administration commitment to provide quality education to all children across the country.

Speaking at the event, the World Bank Specialist in Nigeria, Tunde Adekola, said the GPE, which was put in place in 2002 by member states of the United Nations, channels donations made by international bodies and philanthropists to support educational development.