Quranic and Islamic schools in Kano State are beneficiaries of a N105 million grant from the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF).
This is part of efforts at integrating such schools into Western education and reducing the number of out-of-school children in the state.
EduCeleb.com reports that Kano is home to one of the three highest number of out-of-school children in Nigeria, according to the education ministry.
Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State inaugurated support fund on Sunday in Kano.
According to him, the fund would complement his administration’s free and compulsory basic and secondary education programme in the state.
“It is with gratitude to God that we launch the Islamiyya School Support programme by donation of food items and cash to 1,000 Alaranmas (clerics) who are from 1000 Tsangaya schools across the 44 Local Government Areas of the state,” he said at the launch.
Mr Ganduje also commended the efforts of development partners such as the DFID, World Bank and the UNICEF.
According to him, “the presentation of symbolic cheques of N250,000 UNICEF grant to each of the 10 out of the 440 Islammiyya Schools in the state is commendable.
“This grant is in the sum of N250,000 each to community-based management Committees.”
He also disclosed that UNICEF was also partnering with the Kano government in the on-going census of the out-of-school children across the 44 Local Government Area of Kano State.
He revealed that the state government had commenced the integration of Tsangaya Schools in the state into the conventional education system with provision of teachers in English and Mathematic subjects.
Mr Ganduje pledged to sponsor Qur’anic teachers to further their education to countries like Saudi Arabia so that they would be upgraded on the best way to impact Islamic knowledge to their students.
In his remarks, UNICEF Field Officer, Maulid Warfa, said UNICEF had distributed education improvement grants to over 300 schools and 420 Islamic Qur’anic schools worth N180 million in collaboration with Kano state government.
Represented by Miki Koide, an Education Specialist at the Kano office of UNICEF, Mr Warfa said the organisation would consider schools that used the funds judiciously for other rounds of grants.
He added that funds meant for school improvement would support Kano state Government’s free and compulsory education.
