Sokoto partners UNICEF, trains 830 ‘role model’ female teachers

Sokoto government, in collaboration with the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), is training 830 female teachers in a pioneer scheme to provide enough role models for female students especially in rural communities in different parts of the state.

The female train the trainee scheme being executed under UNICEF’s Girls Education Project (GEP3) is aimed at training female teachers from rural areas who would, in turn, go back to their communities and teach.

Giving an insight into the project when she led a team on a sensitisation visit to the wife of the state Governor, Hajiya Mariya Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, a Consultant overseeing the implementation of the project, Maryam Usman Na’ibi, said the GEP3 project also aims to get out of school rural children back to school without further delay.

“We have discovered that among the reasons behind girls dropping out of school children are poverty, religious misconception, ignorance, cultural beliefs and insecurity. Parents are afraid of sending their girl children to school because of fear that male teachers may molest them.

“So in order to reassure communities holding such misconceptions, we decided to train female teachers from among themselves who will, in turn, take the lead in teaching children from their localities,” she added.

Besides, Naibi said in order to take care of poverty issues, the Sokoto state government and UNICEF introduced a cash transfer programme, where mothers or care givers get 5000 Naira monthly for sending a girl child to school to assist them to buy books and other things for the girls.

In addition to the payment to mothers and care givers, she said the trainee female teachers will also get paid to aid their education, while at the end of their studies, they are absorbed into the state civil service as teachers in their localities.

According to her, the GEP3 has been implemented in six local government areas namely Binji, Bodinga, Gudu, Goronyo, Kebbe and Wurno.

While the state government sponsors 600 of the female teachers, UNICEF takes care of 230 for the FTTSS programmes.
In her remarks, Hajiya Mariya Aminu Waziri Tambuwal commended UNICEF and the state government for their concern for the girl-child education in the state, promising to support the project and forward their complaints to the state government for further action.