Governor orders free education for girls in Kaduna public schools

Kaduna State governor,

This was disclosed by the state's Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Ja'afaru Sani, at a news conference in Kaduna on Saturday, September 22, 2018.

According to the commissioner, 191,445 female students currently in Kaduna public schools will immediately benefit from the government's new directive which will cost it N143 million every term and N430 million annually.

The commissioner said the government's decision will remove any hindrance to girls acquiring quality education as they make up a majority of the over 10 million out-of-school children in the country.

He said, "We hope by this gesture parents will have no excuse not to send their girl-child to school and significantly increase enrolment and retention of the girl-child in school. This was in line with the significance the current administration placed on educating the girl-child.

"It will be recalled that the female students were accorded priority when the government distribute 15,000 tablets computers to secondary school students.

"Also about 900 million and 70.335 million have been expended on girl-child scholarship and female teacher support respectively under the World Bank’s 21.5 million dollars grant for Global Partnership for Education project.

"Similarly, Mercy Corps Foundation in collaboration with the education ministry had equally returned 100 married women dropped-out back to school.

"You can see that Kaduna State has demonstrated it resolve in many ways for female student to receive the best of education."

Sani also revealed that the government has recruited an additional 13,606 qualified teachers for pupils in its public primary schools.