The United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF) has taken the campaign on girlchild education under the Educate-A-Child (EAC) Cash Transfer Programme (CTP) to Sokoto state.
The Fund, in collaboration with Child Rights Information Bureau of the Federal Ministry of Information, would on Wednesday hold a two-day dialogue on the programme in the state capital. The dialogue is expected to present facts of the data on the status of issues connecting children, especially girls access to education, health and safety as a way of holding responsibility towards bridging the existing gaps.
Last week, the Fund, working in consonance with Capra International, made a public presentation of the 2017 Impact Evaluation of Girls Education Project Phase 111 (GEP3) Cash Transfer Programme (CTP) in Sokoto and Niger states. UNICEF revealed that the GEP3 Cash Transfer Programme (CTP), aimed at increasing girls’ enrolment and attendance was a huge success in the two states, where 10, 347 children were already benefiting.
The report stated that the team carried out sampling techniques 862 schools in selected six local government areas of Niger state, while 514 schools, also in selected six LGAs, were from Sokoto state. “Both the treatment and control schools and GEP3 communities were selected within catchment areas with the highest proportion of out-of-school girls. “In each state, there are a total of 210 schools, which constitute the GEP3 schools.
The Cash Transfer benefiting schools and caregivers were selected from the GEP3 schools and their respective communities”. UNICEF said due to financial constraints, the GEP3 schools that benefited were from CTP were 72 in Niger, while 62 were from Sokoto state. Further revelations showed that the CTP significantly increased the income of poor households in the two states with programme impact of 15.9 per cent and 12.6 per cent in Niger and Sokoto states, respectively.
The net change in average monthly expenditure on health and households was positive and statistically significant in the two states, thus making an increase of N1, 742 in household average monthly expenditure on health and programme impact of 19.54 per cent in Niger state, while N758.32 in household average month expenditure on health and programme impact of 12.8 per cent was for So0koto state. Evidence from the analysis attest to the effectiveness of the CTP in removing financial barriers to girls’ enrolment and attendance at school, stood at 68.9 and 60.7 per cent of caregivers interviewed in the respective state. “The CTP had a positive impact on girls’ attendance in all classes with the exceptions of Primary 5 in Niger state. It is noteworthy that lower classes were generally observed to have more attendance in the two states, indicating that the CTP has considerable impact in encouraging the attendance of younger girls that have never attended school”, the report added.
The report further stated that enrolment under CTP in the two state was widespread across target LGAs, thus “in Niger state, girls’ enrolment increased by 35.5 per cent in the GEP3 CTP schools after the programme implementation, while in Sokoto, girls’ enrolment rose to 65.5 per cent in GEP3 schools and 6.3 per cent in non-CTP schools”. Consequently, the CTP schools were unable to cope with the increased demand for enrolment of girls in the two states, but significantly, it helped to reduce inequities in households in terms of access to girls’ education in the two states.
