Segun Awofadeji in Bauchi
The Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed has called for increased investment in girl-child education for the sustainable, socio-economic development of the country.
The governor, who stated this when he received about 2,000 school girls at the Government House, Bauchi shortly after an advocacy march organised by UNICEF and the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) as part of activities to commemorate the 2019 Day of the Girl Child, regretted that denying girls education retards their progress and that of the society and urged parents and stakeholders in the sector to give priority to female education.
Represented by the Chief of Staff, Abubakar Tari, the governor stressed the need to invest massively in the education of female teenagers who are living in the transition from childhood to early adulthood, rather than parents sending them to hawk or early marriage, adding that the education of the girl-child is a priority of his administration as efforts are on to provide adequate finances and other logistic support for the promotion of girl child education.
Mohammed said his administration met on ground a backward system of education in the state that was begging for attention, saying that the education sector of the state has received a lot of interventions that has reflected positively in the lives of children of school age.
On her part, the UNICEF Education Specialist, Miriam Dikwa stressed the need for parents to invest massively in girl-child education, saying it would help to shape their future positively.
She said in order to have more enrollment of girls in schools, UNICEF has trained 144 girls in various skills and carried out many interventions to encourage girls to get education.
