THE World Bank has approved a $500m loan for Nigeria’s education sector.
The amount was approved through the International Development Association and it is targeted at improving education opportunities among girls.
The project, to be implemented under the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment, will cover seven targeted areas in the country, with about six million beneficiaries.
The states that will benefit are Kano, Kebbi, Kaduna, Katsina, Borno, Plateau, and Ekiti.
The bank said that 5,500 Junior Secondary Schools and 3,300 classrooms for Senior Secondary Schools would be built across the states, among others.
It added that 80 per cent of households in the North were poor and unable to cover education costs.
The World Bank said, “In northern Nigeria, the lack of secondary schools is significantly greater with up to 10 primary schools for every secondary school.
“The poor condition of infrastructure and a lack of water sanitation and hygiene facilities make it difficult for girls to stay in school.”
The lender said if there were no interventions, 1.3 million girls, out of the 1.85 million who began primary school in 2017/2018 in the northern states, would drop out before reaching the last year of junior secondary school.
According to the World Bank, there is no better investment to accelerate Nigeria’s human capital development than to significantly boost girls’ education.
The World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri, was quoted in the statement to have said, “The AGILE project will enable Nigeria to make progress in improving access and quality of education for girls, especially in northern Nigeria.
“Addressing the key structural impediments in a comprehensive way will create the enabling environment to help Nigeria ensure better outcomes for girls, which will translate into their ability to contribute to productivity and better economic outcomes for themselves and the country.”
