School retention: 16, 260 girls to get cash incentives in Bauchi

No fewer than 16,260 girls in Junior and Senior Secondary Schools in Bauchi State are to benefit from a conditional cash transfers programme to encourage them to attend classes and graduate under the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) project.

The Bauchi State Project Coordinator of AGILE, who doubles as State Commissioner of Education, Dr Jamila Dahiru, disclosed this yesterday during a breakfast meeting with Media Executives in Bauchi, adding that each of the girls in JSS 1-3 will be given the sum of N5,000 while those in SS 1-3 will receive the sum of N10,000 every term in order to encourage them to always return to school until graduation.

Dahiru further revealed that there will be a digital education programme in order to empower them with a skill, which will be useful to them in the future, adding that the project is to assist students who have dropped out of school due to economic issues to have the chance to go back to school and complete the second stage of education.

She said the target is the poorest of the poor who do not have any means of payment of school fees and other requirements, adding that a mechanism has been put in place to determine those that will qualify.

“Apart from boosting enrolment of the girl child in school, the AGILE project will ensure that the standard and quality of education do not decline but rather improve greatly as teachers will be motivated and well equipped to impart knowledge on the students,” she said.

The AGILE Project is a World Bank Assisted project of the Federal Ministry of Education designed at improving secondary education opportunities for adolescent girls aged between 10 and 20 years.