Minister hails NIPEP participating states for smooth take- off

Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, has commended the five states participating in a special education intervention programme known as Nigerian Partnership for Education Project (NIPEP) namely Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, Kaduna and Sokoto, all in North –West Nigeria for their interest in the project.

The Minister, who gave the commendation at the maiden meeting of the National Steering Committee meeting held in Abuja, also noted that the project has successfully taken off in all the five pilot states.

In line with the objective of the project which includes promoting school effectiveness and improving learning outcomes, Adamu said the project is already recording appreciable progress and that in all the five states, scholarships have been given to girls to boost enrolment and that grants has been given to schools to make school environment conducive for teaching and learning even as scholarships have also been given to female teachers to support their professional development.

The Minister further stated that the project which is the first grant programme in the basic education subsector is designed to run for four years from 2015 – 2019 and is being funded with a 100 million dollar grant from the Global Partnership in Education, GPE.

According to him, the project is open to girls in public schools and the integrated Islamiyya schools operating in those states, adding that 12,179 schools are expected to benefit from the environment improvement grant while 18,421 female teachers will enjoy the professional development scholarship.

The Minister also assured the international partners involved in the project including DFID, UNICEF, USAID and World Bank that the Ministry would do everything possible to achieve effective coordination of the project while it lasts.

The Director of Basic Education in the Ministry, Mrs. Anne Okonkwo, also speaking at the occasion, stressed that the task of getting Nigerian children especially, the girl child to school calls for concerted effort of all partners. She expressed optimism that the project would achieve the desired goals.

The National Coordinator of NIPEP, Mr. Joseph Achede, took participants through a comprehensive analysis of the project content while representatives of the five participating states delivered progress reports on their implementation status so far.