Adamu Yusuf
Two hundred thousand out-of-school children, including Persons With Disability, will be enrolled back to school under the Return Out-of-School Children project in Kaduna (ROOSC).
The Project Director of Save the Children International, Mr. Emmanuel Mbursa, stated this during a media parley on the mandates of the ROOSC project and achievement held in Kaduna.
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He said an assessment would be conducted on children of school age who were PWDs and assisting devices would be provided to them for effective learning.
“We are partnering with the agencies for disability inclusion and hospitals for eye and ear to see that while children are learning, there are no barriers.
“We will be training teachers on inclusive education so that the PWDs in the classrooms would be accommodated according to their needs,” he said.
Earlier, the Project Coordinator, Programme Management Unit, ROOSC, Ezra Angai, explained that there was a high number of out-of-school children in the state and the project was initiated to address it.
According to him, 200,000 children of primary school age would be returned back to school within four years across the 23 LGAs in the state.
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He said that some of the children lacked access to school due to proximity or security issues adding that the project aimed to address the issue by constructing 102 new schools across the 23 LGA in the state.
Angai said that 170 schools, including learning centres, would be renovated, adding that students at the Tsangaya or Quranic schools would be integrated, teaching them basic literacy and numeracy skills as well as life skills .
He stated that the Accelerated Basic Education Programme approach would be implemented to fasten the learning of the almajiris and other children in informal schools for a period of nine months.
Angai added that capacity building training was conducted for teachers and quality assurance officers to enhance learning of the children in the classroom while providing 500,000 teaching and learning materials to teachers and pupils
“Save the children will be implementing the aspect that has to do with the quality of learning while UNICEF would implement the system strengthening.
“A robust database would be set up for the state ministry of education which would help track the child; the process is ongoing,” he said.
The ROOSC project is an initiative of the Kaduna State Government under its Ministry of Education with the Save the Children and the United Nations Children’s Fund UNICEF as implementing partners.