The World Bank has supported the most populated primary school in Kaduna, LEA Rigasa, with educational facilities worth more than N30 million.
The school, which has a population of 22,240 pupils, would benefit from facilities, which, include 500 chairs and 50 mats.
The Director of Schools, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Dahuru Anchau, disclosed this in an interview on Tuesday in Kaduna.
He said that the items would assist in improving the teaching and learning of the students.
Mr Anchau, who is also 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, Olatunde Adekola, was moved to take action after he saw the pressure the over populated pupils had put 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, bookshelves and other items for children’s playground with the first chunk of the money.
“The remaining amount would be used to supply the school with books and other reading and writing materials as directed by the bank,’’ he said.
The bank is spending N20 billion under GPE to support girl-child education in the five states of Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Jigawa and Sokoto where all indexes on education appeared to be very low.
The partnership is being supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, and UK Department for International Development, DFID.
The target is 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 is 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 over 3,400 primary schools have so far 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.
NAN
