By; ALEX UANGBAOJE, Kaduna
The most populated primary school in Kaduna State, L.E.A Rigasa with 22,240 pupils have been supplied with 500 chairs, 50 mats and other facilities to ease teaching and learning.
The Director of Schools in the state’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Malam Dahuru Anchau made this known on Tuesday in Kaduna.
Anchau, said that the items were from the first chunk of the N30 million pledged by the World Bank to improve teaching and learning facilities in the school.
Anchau, who is the Project Coordinator, Global Partnership for Education (GPE) in the state, said that the remaining chunk would be used to purchase books and other writing materials for the school.
He recalled that the bank had in October 2017 ordered the immediate release of the amount during the bank’s midterm review of the N6 billion granted to the state under the bank’s GPE project.
According to him, the bank’s representative, Dr Olatunde Adekola was moved after he saw the pressure the over populated pupils had on teaching and learning facilities in the school.
“Adekola immediately announced the intervention for immediate upgrade of facilities at the school.
“Yesterday we supplied the school with over 500 chairs, 50 mats, books shelf’s and other items for children’s play ground with the first chunk of the money.
“The remaining amount would be use to supply the school with books and other reading and writing materials as directed by the bank.”
The bank is spending N20 billion under GPE to support girl-child education in five states namely Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Jigawa and Sokoto states where all indexes on education appeared to be very low.
The partnership was being supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and UK Department for International Development (DFID).
The target was to increase reading and writing skills for pupils in nursery and those in primary one to three, and strengthen community activism and local governance.
It also aimed at expanding access to education through community initiatives and to increase the number of qualified female teachers in areas with high gender disparities.
The state coordinator said that so far, over 3,400 primary schools have benefited from the programme.
According to him, a total of 8,050 primary school girls from poor homes had received N45, 000 scholarship grants to continue with their education, with 1,170 female teachers also getting similar amount to further their studies.
