Kaduna: Under the Return Out-of-School Children (ROOSC) project in Kaduna, no fewer than 200,000 out-of-school children, including persons with disabilities (PWD), will be enrolled back to school.
The ROOSC project is an initiative of the Kaduna State Government under its Ministry of Education, with Save the Children (SCI) and the United Nations Children’s Fund(UNICEF) as implementing partners.
This was disclosed on Monday during a parley with journalists on the ROOSC project’s mandates and achievements.
The Project Director, SCI, Emmanuel Mbursa, stated that children of school age who were PWDs would be assessed, and assisting devices would be provided to them for effective learning.
“We are partnering with the agencies for disability inclusion and the hospital 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 of the Programme Management Unit, ROOSC, Ezra Angai, stated 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 will be returned to school within four years across the state’s 23 LGAs.
He said that some of the children lacked access to school due to proximity or security issues, adding that the project aimed to address this issue by constructing 102 new schools across the 23 LGAs 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, numeracy, and life skills.
He stated that the Accelerated Basic Education Programme approach would be implemented for nine months to hasten the learning of the almajiris and other children in informal schools.
Angai added that capacity-building training was conducted for teachers and quality assurance officers to enhance the learning of children in the classroom. 500,000 teaching and learning materials were also provided to teachers and pupils.
“Save the Children will implement the aspect related to the quality of learning, while UNICEF will 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.
