The Zamfara State Adolescent Girls for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) in collaboration with the Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEFA) and the Health and Integrity of Women and Children Development Initiative (HIWOCDIN) has vowed to reduce the alarming number of over one million Out of School Children in the state.

This was disclosed by the Technical Lead of the programme, Dr Ahmad Hashim during a workshop which was organized to engage stakeholders comprising Community, Religious and Traditional rulers, local government Chairmen, Police, NSCDC and school Principals from across the 14 local government areas of the state with a view to get them to buy into the programme.

Dr Hashim who described the threatening number of Out of School Children as very alarming and capable of back-pulling society said sixty per cent of the number discovered were girls, the reason that AGILE and other complementary partners geared up to embark on reducing the number through ensuring enrolment of 2,250 school aged girls.

He further informed that, initially, the collaboration made a declaration for the direct enrolment of the said 2,250 school-aged girls, while over 10,000 will indirectly benefit, he added, is a complimentary effort towards improving the existing government’s policy on girls’s Education in Zamfara State.

Dr. Hashim opined that the targeted beneficiaries were those who lost their first chance of their educational foundation especially those who completed primary schools going to secondaries while others lost after completion of JSS to SSS due to various reasons surrounding either abject poverty or death of their parents.

”The main objective of the programme is to provide a second chance for the girls to get another opportunity under the AGILE a World bank assisted project to continue their education from where they lost, the enrolled girls would be taught learning literacy, numeracy and skills as well as various lucrative subjects for them to be useful to the society in the end.

”It is based on this, that centres will be established which would be managed by the AGILE for the enrolment of the targeted beneficiaries, and their second chance for education would be supported through cash transfers so that they could be able to transport themselves to their various schools they would be posted”, Dr Hashim has added.