Teach for Nigeria Partners Kaduna State Government to Reform Education in Northern Nigeria
(L-R): Folasade Adefisayo, Co-founder/Board member, Teach For Nigeria; Ahmed Mansur, Board member, Teach For Nigeria; Malam Nasir El-Rufai, Executive Governor, Kaduna State; Folawe Omikunle, Chief Executive Officer, Teach For Nigeria; Malam Ja'afaru Sani, Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Kaduna State; at a meeting with the management and board of Teach For Nigeria which held at the Sir Kashim Ibrahim House recently.
In the furtherance of its commitment to putting an end to education inequity, Teach for Nigeria (TFN), a non-profit organization, has expanded its program to the Northern region of Nigeria to lift education in marginalized parts of the country. This transformational program, which kicked-off in 2017 in Lagos and Ogun State, has now extended to Kaduna, following the organization’s Partnership Agreement with the State Government to place teachers in high-need primary schools across the state. Through this collaboration, Teach for Nigeria mobilized 88 Fellows, who currently serve as full-time teachers across 22 public primary schools in Kaduna State.
Commenting on the expansion, the Chief Executive Officer of Teach for Nigeria, Folawe Omikunle said “the Kaduna State Government’s bold education reforms and its unflinching commitment to improving learning outcomes for children in public schools were the bases upon which we selected Kaduna state to be our first partner state in the Northern region. This is why we also set up our Northern office in Kaduna state, to underpin our commitment to the region.
The Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, spoke up against the current state of education in the nation as a whole. “Most of us are products of the public-school system and we feel we must bequeath to our children the type of quality education that was bequeathed to us. We have considered education the most important sector from the onset of our administration. This is why we have been consistent in allocating over 20% of our budget to the sector throughout the last few years of this administration.” He expressed hope that “TFN will become the guiding light for future interventions. We have over 4,000 primary schools in Kaduna State that need innovation and mentoring.”
The Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology in Kaduna state, Malam Ja’afaru Sani, also commended the TFN team for its commitment to social development through the Fellowship program, and for choosing Kaduna state to pioneer in the Northern region. The commissioner also stated that the Department for International Development (DFID) would be a part of the process, with baseline evaluation conducted in the schools to allow for proper impact assessment.
Teach for Nigeria plans to further expand and deepen its efforts over the next 10 years – to impact over 500,000 primary school children across Nigeria annually.
