GPE awards Nigeria a $15M grant as part of the COVID-19 response grant

The Global Partnership for Education has awarded Nigeria a  15 Million dollar grant as part of the COVID-19 response grant for the safe reopening of schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

This was disclosed by Achede Owoicho, deputy director of basic and secondary education,  during a cluster mobilization and sensitization meeting on COVID-19 protocol, surveillance, and safe school reopening readiness, on Wednesday.

She explained that Nigeria got the grant as a result of previous engagements with GPE.

“At the end of our engagement with the GPE, a 15 million-dollar grant was given to Nigeria as part of the COVID-19 response grant for the country.”

“UNICEF was chosen as the grant agent to receive the monies and disburse since global players do not give their money directly to the government.”

Owoicho commended the GPE for approving Nigeria’s application for assistance to mitigate the loss of learning time due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

She noted that the ministry also ran a 100 million dollars Nigeria Partnership for Education project, also being funded by the GPE in Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto, Jigawa, and Katsina.

She said the project was meant to improve access and quality of basic education in the five states with an emphasis on girls’ education for five years (2016-2020).

“The target of the project was initially to bring 80,000 girls back to school via girls’ scholarship, but at the end, 417,200 girls were brought back to school in those five states.

“Also, over 43,000 schools got grants to make their schools conducive for learning while 15,000 teachers, who did not have teaching qualification of National Certificate in Education (NCE) were given scholarship.

“It is on that premise that the GPE deemed it fit for Nigeria to apply for the 15 million dollars COVID-19 response grant, after using the 100 million dollars judiciously.’’

Mairama Dikwa, an education specialist in the UNICEF, called for the support of state governments to ensure effective disbursement of the funds.

“There has been a negative impact on education as a result of COVID-19, thus disrupting learning.

“In spite of all these challenges, UNICEF with other stakeholders put in place measures to ensure learning continues, by working extensively on home-based programs to ensure learning continues.

“In other words, to ensure safety in all our schools, it is the responsibility of all.

“The SBMC needs to support the government’s efforts to make sure safety in the school is enhanced,’’ she said.