By Najib Sani
Kaduna State government would incorporate life skills and other vital gender policies in its education curriculum and budget with a view to improving girls education and productivity.
State commissioner for education, Professor Abubakar Sani Sambo, disclosed this at a high-level validation workshop convened by the Kaduna State Ministry of Education with support from the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE), Kaduna State where policymakers, development partners and civil society actors reviewed draft policies on Gender in Education and Life Skills.
He said the initiative especially of integrating life skills in the education curriculum would empower the girls economically beyond classrooms, making them engaging in viable economic activities.
According to him, the 'Gender in Education Policy' is expected to tackle structural barriers, such as safety, access, and retention, that disproportionately affect girls, while the 'Life Skills' framework introduces competencies that enable young people to navigate real-life challenges.
“This reform is a direct investment in reducing early marriage, improving retention, and strengthening the future of our young people,” the commissioner said.
Also speaking, the state project coordinator of AGILE, Maryam Dangaji, said the reform would address deeper social challenges affecting adolescents, particularly girls.
She pointed out that Kaduna, like other northern states, continues to grapple with the vices of early marriage, school dropping out and gender-based violence opining that the issues cannot be separated from education outcomes.
In her remarks, the Executive Director of the Centre for Girls’ Education, Habiba Mohammed, said the initiative would transform isolated interventions to a system that works for every girl.
She said the centre has been in frontline in supporting the process of institutionalising life skills in education in Kaduna State.
She added that the initiative involves incorporating life skills into school timetables, training teachers to deliver the curriculum and embedding monitoring indicators within existing quality assurance systems.
Other participants at the workshop highlighted that the level of political engagement is a critical factor in the reform’s prospects.
They called for finalising and adopting the policy frameworks, securing budget allocations, training teachers and establishing monitoring systems to ensure the policies are effective and efficient.
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