Need for legislation on EAC, GEP projects in northern states

There is no disputing the facts that the objectives of United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) to scale up enrolment of the girl-child into basic education system in Northern states, is yielding results.
MARTIN PAUL writes.

How it started In line with government declaration of state of emergency in education in the Sokoto state, UNICEF’s introduction of Girl Education Programme (GEP), spanned from GEP1 to GEP 111, within a period of two years of 2014/2015 and 2015/2016, through the Cash Transfer Programme (CTP), added more success stories to the achievements.
At a recent round table dialogue with media men in Sokoto, UNICEF’s Education Specialist, Azuka Menkiti, outlined that the use of Cash Transfer Programme was implemented in two areas of Girl Education Programme 111 (GEP3) and Education A Child (EAC) to expand access to quality basic education for 501,749 outof-school children, mostly girls, by 2020.
While GEP was famous in Sokoto and Niger sate, the EAC is currently being implemented in Kebbi and Zamfara states, thus improving access, attendance and perhaps, retention in schools.
Azuka emphasised that increased access for out-ofschool children and improved quality of teaching and learning environment in target states, were major objectives of the GEP and EAC programmes.
Thus, the cash transfer intervention under the EAC is aimed at reach 41,391 child beneficiaries and their female caregivers in four years with Kebbi having 31,044 beneficiaries and 10,347 in Zamfara state.
It is on record that currently, the programme is running in three local government areas (LGAs) of Danko-Wasagu, Suru and Maiyama, while it would be expanded to Argungu, Bagudo, Dandi, Gwandu, Koko-Besse and Shanga LGAs of the state in the years to come.
Reasoning Azuka reasons that “the ability of an unconditional cash transfer to promote school enrolment is that lack of income is why poor parents do not send their children to school.
This reasoning is supported by evidence from cash transfer situational analysis and community household mapping and listing of out-of-school children that indicates povertyrelated issues as the most cited reasons that prevents children, especially, girls from attending schools.
The barriers Citing poverty as example, she avers that almost one third of parents about 32 per cent of those interviews claim this as related reasons their children were not in school.
Though basic education is officially free, the reality is that educational related costs do exist, not just fees, but also indirect and opportunity costs.
These costs include direct fees, paid directly to the school or school system for tuition, examination, activity costs, etc; indirect costs such as books, stationery, uniforms, transport, snacks/meals; and opportunity costs such as loss of child labour at home, errand support, care of siblings.
Another reasoning is that when a household incomes increase as a result of the unconditional cash transfer, it is assumed that their expenditure on human capital investments such as sending their children to school, would increase.
Thus, evidence from studies on unconditional cash transfers, demonstrate that these transfers increase schooling, particularly by girls in primary school without imposing any conditionalities.
UNICEF Nigeria Unconditional Cash transfer programme is specifically designed to support families with the direct and opportunity costs of children’s education, especially, girls, Azuka asserts.
In consonance with this, poorest families receive cash to counter the direct and opportunity costs of education, thereby reducing economic and child labour barriers.
CTP impact on household According to Azuka, findings conducted by UNICEF shows that the CTP significantly increased the income of poor households with programme impact of 15.9 per cent and 12.6 per cent in Niger and Sokoto states, respectively.
The change in average weekly income of caregivers in the two states was 1,123.40 and 419.91, respectively.
The net change in average monthly expenditure on health per household was positive and statistically significant in the two states.
There was an increase of 1,742 in household average monthly expenditure on health and programme impact of 19.54 per cent in Niger state, and an increase of 758.32 in household average monthly expenditure on health and programme impact of 12.8 per cent in Sokoto state.
The results also demonstrate that the expenditure pattern of the caregivers changed in favour of girls’ education after the debut of the CTP in both states.
The CTP has a positive and statistically significant relationship with household expenditure on girls’ education with programme impact of 17.71 per cent and 17.91 per cent in Niger and Sokoto States respectively.
The net change in household average expenditure per term on girl child education was 906.68 and 1,436.49 in Niger and Sokoto states, respectively.
Evidence from the results of the analysis attests to the effectiveness of the CTP in removing financial barriers to girls’ enrolment and attendance at school in Niger and Sokoto States.
68.9 per cent and 60.7 per cent of caregivers interviewed in Niger and Sokoto States respectively stated that the CTP has to a very large extent helped in removing financial barriers to girls’ enrolment and attendance at school.
As a consequence of the cash transfer, the net change of average enrolment of girls’ per CTP school in Niger and Sokoto states is positive and statistically significant.
The CTP had a positive impact on girls and lower classes were generally observed to have more attendance, indicating that the CTP had considerable impact in encouraging the attendance of younger girls that have never attended school.
Evidence from the two states also indicates that the CTP promoted income-generating activities among caregivers in the CTP communities in the two states.
The household decision about sending girls to school is to a very large extent influenced by cash transfer as well as sensitization and mobilisation activities at the community level in both states.
In general observation, CTP has a negative impact on some parents’ attitude to boys’ enrolment and attendance at school, where some aggrieved parents, who did not benefit, withdrew their male children from school.
Sustainability strategies A total of 12,314 girls have benefited from the CTP under GEP3 programme in Niger state and 11,341 in Sokoto, bringing the overall total to 23,655 of the targeted number of 501,749 children.
Net increase in average girls’ enrolment of 29.4% in Niger and 32.4% in Sokoto states, was recorded.
In summary, the two states, as well as Kebbi and Zamfara are continuing the programme and reaching more children.
Report at our disposal shows that 10,983 out of 41,491 boys and girls have received the first payment of cash transfer in Kebbi ( 8354) and Zamfara( 2,629) states.
Government capacity to scale-up the CTP in Niger and Sokoto states depends solely on political will.
Factually, the two state governments are enthusiastic for a scale-up of the CTP, but the worry is continuity of the programme after the preset government might have left office in 2019.
Findings have shown that the sustenance of CTP is based on funding, thus the need for inculcation in the yearly budget becomes imperative.
An unflinching legislation from the various Houses of Assembly, would, therefore, ensure the sustenance of the project, not only in Niger and Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara, but in every state willing or to which the GEP programme could be taken.

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