Traditional leaders in Sokoto State have reaffirmed their commitment to promoting vocational skills in schools, aiming to enhance girl-child education and reduce street wandering among pupils.
They also pledged their unwavering support for the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) program, which seeks to safeguard schools from vandalism, drugs, and other criminal activities.
The District Heads of Sokoto, Ciroman Sokoto Alhaji Aliyu Abubakar III and Sarkin Bauran Dange Alhaji Bello Usman, made this commitment when they received the state Coordinator of AGILE, Dr. Mansur Isah Buhari, on an advocacy visit to their palaces.
They promised to support the project and urged their subjects to protect the AGILE facilities to be deployed in secondary schools across the state.
Abubakar III emphasized the importance of combining learning with skill acquisition programs to empower women and orphans, who are more vulnerable in society.
He noted that there is only one existing women’s education center in Sokoto metropolis, highlighting the need for at least one vocational acquisition center in each ward to enable more women to enroll in skill-learning programs.
According to Abubakar III, graduates should receive start-up packs, and a business shop should be rented for each student to prevent them from selling their handmade items.
Dr. Kabiru Aliyu, representing Dr. Buhari, stated that the state government plans to establish additional women’s education centers to supplement the AGILE program.
The AGILE project aims to boost female participation in education, particularly for married women, by providing basic education up to senior secondary level, as well as basic literacy and income generation skills training.
The project expressed gratitude to the traditional rulers and prayed for their guidance and success in fulfilling their promises.
One of the components of the AGILE project is Water and Sanitation (WASH).
Recently, the team inspected 10 secondary schools in the Dange/Shuni local government area for the AGILE pilot program.
These schools will benefit from the AGILE project’s construction of toilets and provision of boreholes for water and sanitation.
The beneficiary schools include Command Secondary School in Giginya Army Barrack, Sokoto, Government Girls Science Secondary School in Shuni, Government Day Secondary School in Gidan Gara, and Government Day Secondary School in Fajallu, among others.
