FG to Increase School Enrolment by 13.6m Children by 2020

Laleye Dipo in Minna

The federal government has planned to increase school enrolment in the country by 13.6million children by 2020.

The focal person of the federal government’s Social Intervention Investment Programme for Niger State, Mrs. Afiniki Dauda, who disclosed this in Minna, the state capital, yesterday, said the government also planned to ensure that these pupils would be physically and mentally fit to face the challenges of education and life.

“This is one of the reasons the federal government introduced the home grown school feeding and health programme and other social security schemes,’ Dauda said.

She however did not give the figures of children presently in schools across the country.

Exchanging views with journalists after assuming office as the Focal Person for the federal government programmes in state, Dauda said the administration of President Muhammad Buhari was also determined to bring back into the school system 11.4 million children mostly girls in order to prepare them for “tomorrow and discourage them from criminal activities.”

She disclosed that the state office of the federal government agency had taken off and that the first activity to be performed is the commencement of the empowerment scheme for which participants in its first phase have been selected.

The focal person explained that the participants were drawn from the three senatorial zones of the state based on the statistics on the poor and vulnerable of the society provided by the World Bank.

Dauda, however, did not give the number of beneficiaries that would benefit under the first phase but insisted that the empowerment scheme would be flagged off next week.

She assured the people of the state that the federal government agency would be ‘fair and just to all the stakeholders, adding that “President Buhari is seriously committed to wiping out poverty from our country.