GEP3:​ Changing Education Narratives in Ingawa

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Girls’ Education Project (GEP3), backed up by the United Nations Children’s Fund, has renewed interest in formal education in the North-west state of Katsina. KUNI TYESSI writes
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Ingawa is about an hour’s journey from the heart of Katsina. A sleepy and peaceful local government area, despite the presence of bandits in some LGAs, has indigenes, particularly children of school age, that exhibit nothing but the hope of a bright future which must not be thwarted or sacrificed on the altar of politics.​
Although all of them in public schools were sitting on worn-out mats on the floor, they greeted in English when THISDAY came visiting. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), through its Girls’ Education Project (GEP3), which is in its third phase of encouraging girl child education through the provision of basic needs, has provided instructional materials such as books, pencils, and chalks, and has embarked on the training and retraining of the teachers. In some cases, it has provided toilets, water through the drilling of boreholes and other key sanitation components.​
At a media dialogue on Girls’ Education supported by UNICEF and UKAID, education manager, UNICEF field office, Kano Michael Banda, emphasised that the programme, which had been on and taking different phases, had begun since 2012 and is creating opportunities for girls to stay in the system and transit to secondary school.​
“Very few girls were transitioning in the education system. A larger proportion of girls dropped out when going into JSS 1 despite the GEP2 and three,” said Banda.
With this gesture and goodwill, the number of school enrolment for girls increased from 690 to 878, as revealed by the head teacher and documented evidence in the school’s register of the 1925 established Dambo Tukur Model Primary School, Aliyu Muhammadu.​
To support UNICEF and partner it in the drive for more school enrolment and retention, the School-Based Management Committee (SBMC) chairman at the local government and state level, Bello Ciroma, revealed the ongoing plans of the state government.​
He said, “The state government had directed that any school being built must go along with chairs and other furniture, nothing that this has been captured in the budget.”
Similarly, the headmaster of Ingawa Pilot School, Yahaya Hassan, revealed that the GEP programme, which started in 2014, has recorded successes.
​ He said, “The programme has been useful since 2014 when it started. Girls’ enrolment had increased compared to that of boys. Initially, it wasn’t so. Initially, we recorded less than 1000 students, but now we have 1,320 pupils and parents transferring their wards here too.”
​Similarly,​ ‘haske’​ is a Hausa word which means ’light’ or ’illumination’. It could not have been chosen in error when mothers in the Ingawa local government area of Katsina and, by extension, other local governments within and around the state sought to stand in the gap for their daughters’ education.
​Over time, the perception that a woman’s place is in the kitchen and bedroom has since changed with exposure and enlightenment. To break the vicious cycle of illiteracy and its attendant consequences, which include poverty, unemployment, crime, low self-esteem, diseases and, in extreme cases, death, mothers in Ingawa have made it a point of duty to tax themselves for the sole aim of the continuity of their daughters in school after the basic nine years free education. They had concluded that indeed, not only do individuals benefit from such programmes, but the benefits are also shared by their respective communities and the country. Better educated women tend to be more informed about nutrition and healthcare and have fewer children, many at a later age.​
They contribute N50 per week towards this gesture which has turned out to be no mean feat. A member of the mothers’ association, Rabi Muhammad Ingawa, explained that support did not only stop for the girls but for mothers among them who were indigents with no form of trade or income. For the need of the N50 per week, the association also taxed itself and gave starter packs to such mothers, and this was usually in the form of groundnuts, which were often processed into oil, while the residue was used for other edible condiments up for sale.
With the falling rate of the naira almost daily, one might wonder about the strength of the N50 and what it stands to achieve in a dwindling economy. Ingawa reveals how the weekly contributions have assisted the group in supporting six of the girls presently in senior secondary school classes and how nine were supported to graduation.​
She said, “We believe in western education, and we have witnessed its importance over the years. We also wanted it for our female children, who have often dropped out of school after the completion of their primary school education due to a lack of funds and support.​”
She added, “As mothers under the body of​ ‘haske’,​ we decided to meet every weekend and tax ourselves N50. With this, we have been able to support six girls in secondary school and nine of them who have since graduated.”
One of the beneficiaries of the GEP and the mothers association, Saratu Usman, is presently running a B.Sc. programme at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, after completing her secondary school with the support of the association.
Expressing her gratitude to UNICEF for the scholarship of fifty thousand for three consecutive years, she says without such support, she couldn’t have been a student of the Isa Kaita College of Education and today possesses a certificate of education in Primary Education Studies.
Like several of her contemporaries, Saratu is married and declared that marriage is no barrier to pursuing education.
Hussaina Mamman Ingawa is another beneficiary who claims that the support from UNICEF has improved her life in all spheres.​
“UNICEF intervention through scholarship has enabled me to read Healthcare Child Education at the Isa Kaita College of Education. I have improved in all spheres, and I pray I can do for others what UNICEF had done for me,” she noted.
With or without foreign aid, the federal and state governments will see the need to invest more in education as the education budgets of 2021 and 2022 do not reveal the stories of commitment. The government also needs to be reminded that no matter its investment in other sectors, no country can run faster than its citizens, particularly in technological advancement, if the citizens are lagging educationally.