Stakeholders at the meeting in Maiduguri on Monday
The At-Risk-Children Programme (ARC-P) of the Federal Government is targeting 63,000 out-of-school children in Borno.
The Borno Coordinator of the programme, Hajiya Inna Galadima, made this known during a stakeholders engagement on Monday in Maiduguri.
Galadima, who was represented by Mr Mohammed Ali, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of the programme, said the programme aimed at providing basic education and some skills to the children, has so far captured many children in Northern and Central parts of the state and would soon reach out to the Southern part of the state.
“The project’s main objective is to lift up the out-of-school children, orphans, vulnerable ones and almajiris from the streets and mainstream them into proper education and also empower some of them.
“This project target in Borno is to see how to mainstream over 63,000 out-of-school children.”
According to Galadima, about 830 Youth Facilitators had been trained to be handling 50 children each for the period of nine months.
In his remarks, a Consultant for the programme, Malam Suleiman Usman, said the meeting was called for contributions on smooth implementation of the programme in the state.
“The reason for the focus group discussion is to enable us understand and take contributions from the different stakeholders that are here like the traditional rulers, tsangaya teachers, representatives of government and even the children involved.
“It has been a successful engagement where participants opened up to list issues that they feel will affect the project if not properly taken care of,” Usman said.
He lauded the Borno Government for its commitment to education with some of the measures put in place, which would facilitate the success of the programme in the state.
Usman said the programme, which is under the office of the Vice President, was part of measures to address the problem of out-of-school children in Nigeria.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that some of the suggestions raised at the meeting by stakeholders included the setting up of Community Base Management Committees to monitor the running of the programme in Borno for maximum success. (NAN)
