Nigeria: $25m SIG Fund Will Boost Enrolment, Beautification in Schools, Says Ekiti

The Ekiti State Government, has said the World Bank’s $25 million School Improvement Grant (SIG) released to the state would spur enrolment, increase beautification and quality of education in the 203 benefiting schools .

It urged stakeholders in the benefiting schools to take ownership of the World Bank projects being executed, for the success of the programme.

The SIG, a brainchild of the World Bank, is being prosecuted under the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) project.

The Project Coordinator, Mrs Oluwayemi Alokan spoke during a training on environmental and social safeguards with grievances redress mechanism and gender-based violence for principals and officials of various School Board Management Committee (SBMC) held across the three senatorial districts of the state.

Alokan, explained that the projects which would involve the renovation of schools in the state and provision of instructional materials and others would only be successful through the support and cooperation of the stakeholders.

She stated that the training was organised to expose stakeholders to the environmental and social practices and help in reducing risks at the various schools for the overall interest of the students.

“The $25 million project when completed would in no small measure improve the level of enrolment and as well guarantee beautification and quality education, especially that of the girl child in the state.

“We put the training together in the three senatorial districts to sensitise our SBMC because they will play a very critical role in carrying out the implementation of this project. We brought them together to have the knowledge of ESMP practice, that is Environmental Social Management Practices of the project.

“Also, the training is on how to know the best practices in this area and of course the risk that can happen at the project site. In Ekiti state, we are doing renovation and we don’t want accidents in our various sites.

“The project has come to stay due to the giant strides of our governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi. If not because of his support we will not be part of the seven states selected in Nigeria to benefit from the World bank assisted programme.

“Let me tell you that this project will go a long way to improve enrolment in Ekiti because it has series of component they will invest in the state.”

A consultant in Environmental Social Safeguards (ESSG), Philemon Benjamin, in his lecture reiterated the need for stakeholders to be proactive and be deliberate in their actions during the course of the projects so as to protect the health and lives of the students in their respective schools.

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