World Bank loans Nigeria N220bn to reduce out-of-school children | EduCeleb
EduCeleb
9th March 2020
The Nigerian Federal Government said it has got money from the World Bank to reduce the number of out-of-school children in the country.
It explained that N220 billion has been secured from the World Bank under the umbrella of Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA), while there is an ongoing process to secure additional N45 billion grant from the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) to help tackle the out-of-school children menace.
EduCeleb.com reports that there are near 10.2 million out-of-school children in Nigeria, with more than half of them being in northern Nigeria.
Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, disclosed the details of the loan in Abuja, on Monday, while delivering a keynote address at an event to mark the 2020 Commonwealth Day.
He said that beyond the financing, his Ministry has designed and will soon begin the implementation of a special project known as the “Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE).
AGILE is a five-year project targeted at out-of-school girls between the ages of 10 and 20 at secondary school level.
Government data shows that only 38% of out-of-school children in Nigeria are girls.
AGILE is a project, he said,  would provide them with vocational skills and other empowerment needed for 21st century relevance.
The Minister, however, appreciated the contributions made so far by the Commonwealth member countries, particularly, in the area of education and human capital development.
In his words, “Commonwealth scholarship scheme has been particularly instrumental to building linkages and integrating member nations. At present, more than 2, 000 Nigerians have benefitted from the scholarship since inception, with average of 12-18 beneficiary scholars every year.
“Aside the Commonwealth scholarship, Federal Ministry of Education also coordinates other bilateral scholarship schemes in which there are, at least, 450 beneficiary scholars at the moment, in addition to over 2, 000 scholarship positions in various tertiary institutions in Nigeria.”