The Project Executive Director, Kano State Education Strategic Investment and Development Initiative, Huzaifa M. Jega, has said the state has set in motion moves to reposition education.
Jega who made this known when he led other members of the development initiative on a visit to the corporate head office of Media Trust Limited publishers of the Daily Trust titles and owners of Trust TV in Abuja said the $500 million project would address five thematic areas including access to the education, closing human resource gap, improving the quality and quantity of education, securing good employment opportunities for graduates and initiating monitoring and evaluation mechanisms in line with global best practices.
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He said there was a need to ensure the success of the five-year project which would be implemented in phases to address out of school children, almajarai syndrome, capacities building and assessment mechanisms for the teachers and other frameworks embedded in the project which also involves contributions from Singapore, Scandinavian countries, South Korea and other countries with proven education mechanisms.
He said the Kano State Government was set to provide 30 per cent of the required funding and expressed confidence in the capacity of the team to raise 70 per cent through donations from well-spirited Nigerians and development partners.
“We are quite confident that we can raise the amount of money in five years because of the stakeholders we have already on-boarded. We are very confident that we will have the required money in five years and given our experiences in design and implementation and sourcing funding for development projects and we are confident that we are going to generate the fund,” he said.
He explained that the project was anchored by the Kano State Government in partnership with Cynox Development Engineering calling for the support of the media organisation in ensuring the project succeeds by among other things, holding them accountable.
He said the team was ready to tackle challenges that could come up during the course of the project, saying “We are Nigerians born and raised in these circumstances if by now we have not figured out ways to surmount these challenges then what are we doing with our brains?
For instance, when you talk about girl-child education, when people are very much against it at least at the subconscious level, a strategic communication campaign that stemmed from the Quran shall be used. I am sure our people will respond to it because it is speaking to them in the language of their value, culture and religion. If we are able to contextualise in this manner to give them local substance, I think we can solve all these problems.”
The Executive Director/Editor-in-Chief of Media Trust, Naziru Mikailu”, assured the team of the support of the media outfit adding that education was germane to the activities of the organisation.