GPE offers Nigeria $125m grant on basic education
Global Partnership for Education (GPE), a multi-donor funding agent for interventions in basic education in developing countries has extended a grant of $125 million to Nigeria to support development of basic education.
Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, disclosed this when he received a delegation from the GPE on a working visit, saying that the aim of the grant is to improve access and quality of basic education in the country.
Deputy Director Press and Public Relations in the ministry, Ben Goong, made this known in a statement on Friday in Abuja.
He said the grant which is a product of Nigeria’s Partnership for Education Project (NIPEP) is with particular focus on girl-child education.
While disclosing that this is not the first time the country would be getting such grant, Adamu acknowledged that government received a grant of $100 million from the GPE in 2015 to help improve quality of education in some states of the north west.
According to the minister, the benefitting states under the $100 million grant were Jigawa, Kano, Kaduna and Sokoto states. He said that the states billed to benefit from the current grant were Oyo, Adamawa and Katsina states.
Adamu, who stated that preparations were ongoing to access the grant before its deadline of June 2020, expressed delight at the opportunity to strengthen the country’s drive to improve its educational standard.
Leader of the delegation, Mr. Sven Baeten, said that the visit was necessitated by his organisation’s interest in the educational development of the country.
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In addition to the $125 million, Sven disclosed that there was another $20 million grant to be made available to countries with education emergency issues, adding however, that the requirements for accessing the grant such as institutional arrangements with clear cut checks and balances among others must be fulfilled before Nigeria can access the grant.
The leader, who expressed the willingness of his organisation to help Nigeria access the grant, also urged government to step up efforts to access the grants as there were other countries with similar challenges.
