Muhammad Garba
No fewer than 36,659 Almajiri and out of school girls commenced writing promotional examination for obtaining primary school certificate under Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) in Jigawa state.
Stallion Times exclusively gathered that; the state Agency for Mass Education is managing the examination exercise across 920 centres in the state.
It is also gathered that, a total of 16,421 Almajiri and 20,238 out of school girls are currently writing the examination under the BESDA program designed to reduce the number of out of school children and also improve access to quality education for all.
While shading lighter about the program, the Director Planning State Universal Basic Education Malam Akilu Yusif said, BESDA is a World Bank supported program and has three major components (Result Area).
The first component RA1, is targeted to reduce the number of out of school children.
RA2 component is for improving literacy (access to quality education) and RA 3 for quality assurance with focus on Data generation, Monitoring and Evaluation of the program.
He explained that, the Almajiri and out of school girls enrolled in to the program will graduated with primary school certificate that can enable them to get admission into formal secondary school.
“All the enrolled Almajiris are given daily feeding to stop them from begging, while monthly allowance is paid to their Alarama (proprietor of Tsangaya) and the person employed to teach them English and Mathematic.”
“In Jigawa state, we commenced the program in 2020 and we are targeting to have more enrolment in the second and subsequent years towards achieving the desired goal… addressing the high rate of out of school children in Jigawa state and Nigeria at large” Akilu Declared.
